Please Welcome My Guest.... Ray (applause...)

Here at long last is the first installment of Ray's Wabakimi Wilderness Adventure!!!! He promises to post about each day so check often....maybe even every day? (or maybe not....)


Wabakimi Trip Blog
August 30 - September 6/08

The Wabakimi Project (Most of this part is plagiarized from www.wabakimi.org):

The Wabakimi Project was started in 2004 by Phil Cotton. Wabakimi is Ontario second largest provincial park (Polar Bear Provincial Park is the largest). Wabakimi is located about 250 kms north of Thunder Bay. It is a wilderness park and has few visitors because of very few canoe routes and lack of maps. Most of the park is only accessible by float plane.

Volunteers who participate in The Wabakimi Project will help make Wabakimi Provincial Park more inviting and user-friendly by exploring and documenting its canoe routes particularly those that have been abandoned and fallen into disrepair. Preservation of the park's canoe route values will make backcountry travel safer, disperse visitor traffic over a wider area, reduce the frequency of human encounters, lessen the impact of human activity on park environs and enhance users' wilderness experiences. Data collected about canoe routes will be used to augment the pool of information needed to develop the park's first Management Plan.

The canoe routes that lie on the Crown lands adjacent to Wabakimi are an integral component of the park's values but they do not enjoy the same degree of protection as those within the park. They are prone to the impacts of road development and resource-extraction activities. The Wabakimi Project will confirm the existence and condition of these canoe routes and will collaborate with other stakeholders to negotiate their recognition and improved protection.

The ultimate outcome of The Wabakimi Project will be the publication of a full-colour, large-scale Wabakimi Canoe Route Planning Map and several volumes of detailed Wabakimi Canoe Route Maps. Ultimately, these materials will be donated to a non-profit conservancy organization that will continue to maintain and update these maps.

The rest is all original.....

I heard Phil Cotton speak in October 2006 at a seminar at an outdoor store in London. In 2008 I would get an extra week vacation as well as some severence pay from switching jobs from the provincial to the federal government so (with Tetcy’s encouragement!!) I signed up for a week in the 2008 Project. Killarney Provincial Park has a guidebook and it has a page of thankyou’s for those who contributed to the printing of the book. I thought it would be cool to be one of the individuals who helped start the canoe routes and perhaps be immortalized in the thank you section of a guidebook.


Friday August 29/08 - The Departing
Got up at 6:30 am to have breakfast, shower and leave for the airport at 7:30ish. I haven’t been sleeping very well for several days now because I am so excited about the trip. Get to the airport at 8:30ish, check-in, say good-bye to Tetcy & the boys and settle in to read my complimentary National Post I took from the Westjet counter
-Fly out of London on Air Canada Jazz flight AC7708 at 9:25 am to Toronto. It has probably been about 6 years since I last took a plane but I was surprised to find myself rather nervous on the take-off from London and the landing in Toronto. Get to Toronto at 10:07 and walked around the airport for awhile because my flight to Thunder Bay doesn’t leave until 12:20. Took a little while to figure out I was supposed to be on the second floor of the airport for my next flight (I felt like such a tourist). Sat in the lounge and read a book. Chatted for awhile with some guy from Edmonton who had been in New York watching a couple of baseball games at Yankee Stadium before it closed. He got his tickets for free from a friend who knows Brian Trottier.
-have a cookie and chocolate milk for lunch. I was tempted by some fish & chips but I don’t want to eat too much because I don’t want to be air sick (even though I have never been air sick).
-board for flight AC8537 to Thunder Bay and once again am nervous on the take-off. The plane is quite full but I somehow lucked out and have no one in the seat beside me.
-Once we near Thunder Bay there was an island that had such amazing breath-taking cliffs that I really did make me gasp in wonder. I think it may have been Sleeping Giant Provincial Park but I am not sure
-we arrive in Thunder Bay at around 2:00. While waiting for my luggage at the carousel, a guy named Walt came up to introduce himself and his friend Dave. They had overheard me talking with another guy on the plane; Walt & Dave will be going to Wabakimi with me.

-Phil Cotton, the organizer of the Wabakimi Project allows participants to use his residence on the day before the trip and the day after the trip.
-we shared a cab to Phil’s house, unpacked a little bit and sat on the deck, chatted and read magazines since we had several hours until the pre-briefing meeting at 5:00
-Dave and Walt have been friends since highschool. They are in their mid to late forties. Dave is a proud Scotsman and Mason. He has a rough gravely voice which makes him sound like an Italian mafioso. He is also very funny. Walt is well-travelled, well read and has an interest in canoe history. Walt has a lot of canoe camping experience.
-Walt & Dave went on a trip in late August last year. They had a great time but found Phil could be a little cantankerous. I had talked to some other past participants and they had also shared Walt & Dave’s opinion. So hopefully I can measure up.
-Sarah who lives next door to Phil came over at 5:00 for a pre-briefing meeting which includes packing the gear for the trip and getting properly fitted for a paddle. We are each given a “ditch kit” which contains: Bug spray, purell, toilet paper, whistle, after-bite, etc. We were given strict instructions on what to bring so I was surprised to see we only got one roll of t/p. I smuggled an extra double roll in my pack (however, I didn’t need to because later in the trip I found other rolls).
-we also met with Terri who would be shuttling us to Armstrong. Packed up Terri’s car to capacity. We are supposed to be on the float plane for 10 am so we should leave at 7 am
-took a cab to the Keg for a steak lunch and some drinks and then back to Phil’s house and bed for 10:30

Favorite Phil Story: Last year, Phil was adamant that they all wear life jackets even when they were near the water. Walt was going to dispose of some fish guts on an island away from the campsite. However, he forgot his life jacket and somehow tipped the canoe just a little way from shore. He was standing in the water as Dave walked up and saw Walt in the water with the overturned canoe. Dave started laughing. To avoid Phil’s wrath, Walt begs Dave for his life jacket before Phil sees him. Dave tosses Walt his life jacket and Walt dunks it underwater to wet it and then walks into the campsite. Phil asks what happened and after hearing the sanitized version says: “See, it’s a good thing you were wearing your life jacket.”