Into my wild

I just recently got back from a 10 day canoe trip in the Temagami lake system up in Northern Ontario. The lakes are beautiful, the sunsets are incredible and the mosquitos make you mental.

In the summers, I work for an organization called Trails; which is a non-profit organization for at-risk youth from Toronto area. It’s a 4 year program plus an L.I.T year for those who apply. The program models the importance of community, fun with a purpose and experiential education. Last year I worked with the year 3 group girls and we paddled the French River for 8 days, which was beautiful. This year, I had the privilege to work with the same group in year 4. So this year is a longer trip for the purpose of really buildings their hard skills such as paddling, camp craft (setting up tarps, cooking, etc..) and their leadership skills in the outdoors. I worked with a fabulous woman whose name was Mandy! We had fun, maybe a little too much sometimes.

The full group was split into two smaller groups, seven and seven with two facilitators each. What both groups accomplished was amazing! Our longest day of paddling was 20 km with a 870m portage and when we got to our campsite the kids were so stoked, so much so we all started acting like excited gorillas. I’m not quite sure how that started. But, the excitement ended once the day’s cooks burned the kraft dinner… mmm smoked Kd… gotta love it.

Our kids were great; the guys had pokemon battles, talked about video games and flirted with girls. The girls talked about how gross their hair was, how lame the boys are and how they hate the bugs. Good times.

the crew

the final day

the crazy staff