The first day we spent learning techniques (Probability of Areas, hasty searches), history and case studies, as well as different types of terrain-searches (water, snow, forest). At the end of the first day we were told that the next day we would have a field exercise to find four people “lost” in the forest around our training facility, Wilderness Tours (WT). We had about an hour and a half to do some preplanning for the next day.
The next day we left Pembroke at noon to travel to WT. We had about two and a half hours before we got the “call” saying there were four hikers lost in the forests close by. Our two leaders were pre-picked and we split into groups of four or five, separated and combed assigned areas in search of missing hikers.
My group was poorly organized. We knew where we were going and what we were supposed to do but getting there was a completely different story. We were lost for about an hour, then realized we were way off track. Once we re-oriented our position, base-camp notified us that three people had been found and they knew where the fourth one was so we just headed back to camp. Learning from mis-steps taught us new understanding of the dangers and challenges to a full-on search and rescue mission where lives can be at stake.
In the end it only took fifty of us four hours to find four people. Strategy, planning, knowing the terrain and field searching introduced us to a better understanding of search and rescue. I thought it was kind of fun, the adrenaline of being part of a field search for a missing person. I would definitely do it again given the opportunity – hopefully real opportunities are few and far between!
]]>Finding the gear you want may not always be the easiest task on your list (we found this out trying to find a winter tent in January). After you’ve researched the brands and found the features you desire, now try to find the gear. Online, you can find almost anything from any brand, but often you want to touch and feel to make sure your decision is right. Here is a list of gear shops we found that were well-stocked and ready for business. We’ve even added our AdventureFrik recommendations!
Eastern and Northern Ontario Gear Shops
(excluding Toronto, bounded Hwy. 400 and East, alphabetical by city)
Algonquin Outfitters **Adventurefrik recommended**
RR 1. Oxtongue Lake
Dwight, ON, (705) 635-2243
Trailhead
272 Princess St, Kingston, (613) 546-4757
1960 Scott St, Ottawa, (613) 722-4229
Bigwood Sporting Goods
139 Worthington Street
North Bay, ON, (705) 474-7425
Lefebvre’s Outdoor Sports
122 Main St West
North Bay, ON, (705) 474-5920
Bushtukah **Adventurefrik recommended**
203 Richmond Road
Ottawa, ON, 1-888-993-9947
The Expedition Shoppe
43 York Street, (613) 241-8397
369 Richmond Rd, (613) 722-0166
Ottawa, ON
GearHeads **Adventurefrik recommended**
3025 Petawawa Blvd
Petawawa, ON, (613) 687-4624
Wild Rock Outfitters
169 Charlotte Street
Peterborough, ON, (705) 745-9133
Ramakko’s
125 Loach’s Road
Sudbury, ON, (705) 522-8889
The Outside Store
2041 Long Lake Road
Sudbury, ON, (705) 522-1755
Gear Up For Outdoors
894 Alloy Place
Thunder Bay, ON, (807) 345-0001
Wilderness Supply
244 Pearl St.
Thunder Bay, ON, (807) 684-9555
Happy Shopping and let me know any favorites you have to add to the list!!
]]>Finding the gear you want may not always be the easiest task on your list (we found this out trying to find a winter tent in January). After you’ve researched the brands and found the features you desire, now try to find the gear. Online, you can find almost anything from any brand, but often you want to touch and feel to make sure your decision is right. Here is a list of gear shops we found that were well-stocked and ready for business. We’ve even added our AdventureFrik recommendations!
Southern Ontario
(excluding Toronto, bounded Hwy. 400 and West, alphabetical by city)
Sojourn
31 Commerce Park Drive
Barrie, ON, (705) 739-9694
Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) **AdventureFrik recommended**
1030 Brant St.
Burlington, ON, (905) 333-8559
Sojourn
510 First Street
Collingwood, ON, (705) 446-1990
Sporting Life
222 Hurontario St.
Collingwood, ON, (705) 445-3773
Squire John’s Ski Shop
RR #3,Highway 26 West,
Collingwood, ON, (705) 445-1130
Suntrail Outfitters
100 Spencer St, Hwy #6
Hepworth, ON, (519) 935-2478
Algonquin Outfitters **AdventureFrik recommended**
86 Main Street East
Huntsville, ON, (705) 787-0262
Webco Sports **AdventureFrik recommended**
240 Duke Street West
Kitchener, ON, (519) 744-1321
Novack’s
211 King Street
London,ON, ON, (519) 434-2282
Europe Bound (Hikers Haven) **AdventureFrik recommended**
166 South Service Rd. East
Oakville, ON, (905) 849-8928
White Squall Ventures
19 James Street
Parry Sound, ON, (705) 746-4936
Outdoors Oriented
111 Fourth Avenue
St. Catharines, ON, (905) 688-0160
Adventure Guide **AdventureFrik recommended**
382 King Street North
Waterloo, ON, (519) 886-3121
Coast Mountain Sports
Barrie. Hwy 26 & 27, (705) 722-1060
Markham, 5000 Hwy 7 E., (905) 948-8020
Mississauga, 199 Rathburn Rd, (905) 281-8422
Mississauga, 5100 Erin Mills Parkway, (905) 828-8341
Oakville, 2460 Winston Churchill Blvd.. (905)829-4721
Happy Shopping and let me know any favorites you have to add to the list!!
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First we had to size up the bike. To tell if your bike is the right size for you, mount the bike and stand over the cross-bar of your bike facing forward with your butt right in front of the seat. With your legs straight, put your hand in a fist and stick it under your groin between the bar and your body. If the bike is the right height, your fist should have slight clearance (5 mm) on each side. To test your seat height, place one foot on the pedal in the lower position. The seat is set correct if you only have a slight bend in your knee. Test the brakes and handle bars for smooth movement and make sure the tires are very firmly inflated. For safety gear, helmets are required, especially if you are heading off-road like we were.
In our cross-country cycling course we learned everything from wheelies to endos (opposite of a wheelie) to hops to jumps. Man this class was the bomb! We were riding Norco Bigfoots mostly and these bikes can take a serious beating. In the afternoon we took these bikes apart and learned the basics of repair.
The second day of this class we did a 40 km ride around our training facility, Wilderness Tours. We did half of this on the road and the other half on trails. If you ever have a chance to run single track biking, take it without a second thought. Single tracks are trails in the forest for bikes. They could have jumps, turns, hills, etc. and really test the mettle of the bike and the cyclist. What a blast!
So far biking is my favourite of the fall activities.
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Well, dedicated readers, it’s time for the basics of navigation. Understanding how to get from point A to point B and back again is probably one of the most important things you will need to know in the outdoors, whether you are hunting, hiking, camping, or skiing. It is also one of the simplest tools for safety and also the easiest to forget. Navigation is not like riding a bike, you will forget it if you do not practice.
Basic navigation requires waypoints, or a map and compass (especially if in unfamiliar territory). Imagine a farmers field. It is fairly easy to navigate to a point across the field and back to your original starting position. Now add hills, trees, rivers and other obstacles. It is very easy to get disoriented.
I had the privilege this week to go to Beachburg Forest. Here we began to understand how to navigate and orient ourselves wherever we were. Our instructors lined us up along the forest edge and told us to walk through and back and see if we came out where we had originally started. The instructors didn’t expect them to be logging in the forest but sent us through anyways confident that we would know when it wasn’t safe for us. The first half we were climbing over cut red pine trees and easy bush-wacking. Then we had to traverse where they had just started logging. It wasn’t too bad, the skidder was still far enough away that I could walk by and not worry about them. I arrived at the opposite destination and began to navigate back to the start. On the return route I encountered heavy logging activity very close to me. To work around the skidding, I decided to use a technique called pacing. This involves turning and walking directly to the left or right and counting your paces. Then walk forward until you are past the object, then count your paces back to the left or right. Believe it or not, at the original forest edge I ended up directly on my marker when I came out.
This navigation exercise wasn’t too challenging as we begin to understand, but as the terrain gets tougher and less familiar more complex elements will need to be added to our skills. Basic tools we will be adding involve topographical maps, compass orienteering skills, Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) tracking and survival techniques for surviving lost.
I understand they will be dropping us in the middle of Crown Forest next time and have to navigate to a particular waypoint … sounds exciting !!
If you have any questions about basic navigation feel free to email me at nelson@adventurefrik.com .
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Recently I had the privilege to take a 5-day white-water rafting expedition that took me down through rivers in Quebec and into Maine, hitting Quebec’s Rouge River (it is actually red), the Jacques Cartier River in Quebec, Maine’s Kennebec River, and the Penobscot River, also in Maine. There were 50 of us, so we crammed our gear and us into a coach liner provided by Foley Bus Lines and a van for our boats and equipment provided by Wilderness tours and headed to white-water land.
Our first river adventure on the Upper Rouge River was unfortunately pathetic as the water levels were low at the end of the summer. The Upper Rouge consisted of one class 3 rapid and the rest were small rock beds that we constantly got our rafts stuck on. The Lower Rouge was a bit better, we actually had some fun as a boat flipped going down one rapid. Between the Rouges we stayed at New World Rafting Center while it was closed for the winter. The next river we headed for was the Jacques Cartier in the small town of Tewkesbury, Quebec. We tented in a field that was owned by Les Glissades de Tewkesbury which is a small-town rafting and snow tubing company. The Jacques Cartier was a pretty amazing river; it is really continuous current and towards the end of the river there is a professional white-water kayaking course.
We crossed the Canadian border into Maine and we stayed at an awesome resort called the Northern Outdoors, basically the Donald Trump of outdoors in Maine. This was by far the best place we stayed at, the lodge and facilities were pretty cool and the rivers we hit there were kick-ass. The first river, the Kennebec, was the group’s favourite almost unanimously. We drove to the Harris Dam, right at the base of the dam. At ten o’clock the dam opened the overflow for the dam, creating the river experience. The water rose 10ft in five minutes. What we rafted was basically a huge wave train (like ACDC’s Rock N Roll Train -from the Toronto concert I attended) all the way down the river. We had three boats flip and have to save themselves (unflip and reload) because of the lack of eddies. Unfortunately because of the dam controls, the trip was only an hour long so we did a high ropes course for the afternoon, but what a ride!! I’m afraid of heights a little bit so that made the experience a lot more exhilarating. The last day became really boring because it was a four hour ride to and from the Penobscot river. After the thrill of the Kennebec , the only really good feature about the Penobscot was the one class five rapid that we hit, and it was really cool because we had a perfect line through the rapids.
Overall I would give the trip an 8 out of 10. Part of learnings for us in expedition travel is learning and managing things when they go wrong. With this adventure, there were circumstances beyond our control that affected the overall experience, but what a fun trip it was. Until next time!
photo credits by permission: Whitewater Expedition and Harris Dam by Andru Brown
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That night’s talk mainly centered around the argument between natural (cotton, wool, down, etc.) and synthetic (polyester, neoprene, nylon, etc.) fibres. This was a rather heated discussion as we came to consensus that it really was dependant on the situation.
Synthetics are good at keeping you dry and warm in wet cases where the fabrics would be subjected to heavy wet conditions where water repulsion and separating the body from water were critical to core body warmth, whereas organics are good at keeping you warm after the wet in retaining body heat and re-building the body’s inner core of warmth. We came to the understanding that if you get organics wet they suck at keeping you warm and they take forever to dry, but applied dry, the benefits of the warmth gained were warmingly insulating. A blend of the two sometimes became the best option where you needed a combination of the benefits of both fibres: other times it comes down to cost factor. Despite the positions on both sides we came to the conclusion that for the rafting and rescue portions of the training, the synthetic fibres offered us the best advantage against the rivers fall edge.
I purchased my gear from the college and from an awesome gear shop called Mountain Equipment Co-op. Some of the names I purchased when comparison shopping was the Level Six Dry Suit and the Sierra Designs Rash Guard. These have served me well so far. As I learn more I will keep you posted.
See ya next time folks!
Adventurefrik
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My first week at school was spent at the Wilderness Tours off-campus Training Facility learning the very basics of canoeing and whitewater raft guiding, surfing and flipping. We spent our time learning and challenging the river and ourselves as we stretched our comfort zone and learned many new skills. The week was an awesome time to bond with fellow students and have a wild time on the Ottawa River’s famous rapids.
What I can tell you about Whitewater Rafting so far is if you want to learn how to guide a raft, just like any new acquired skill, you need to take multiple trips down the same river to get yourself comfortable with the twists, turns and currents of the river – build the knowledge and your confidence. Experience the ride as a rower and then advance to the drivers seat. Once you feel the control of the boat and the pull of the river, the adrenaline pumps into high gear. Learn it, feel it, master it!
Each week I will add some new topics we are studying that you can use as a basic resource as we take this journey together … stay tuned next time for a talk on basic clothing qualities.
]]>Welcome to the launch of Adventurefrik.com! My name is Nelson and I’m a first year student in the Outdoor Adventure Program at Algonquin College in the city of Pembroke, Ontario, Canada. This will be my way to give you first-hand updates on what I’m doing, what I’m learning and what outdoor fun we are having!
My goal is to be able to give you loads of knowledge so you too can get involved in wilderness adventures as well and enjoy these activities like me.
Some of the adventures I will blog about are:
- White water adventure
- Sea kayak adventures
- Rock climbing
- Snowboarding and skiing
- And so much more …
My email is nelson@adventurefrik.com so if you have any questions or comments give me a shout and I will answer you to the best of my knowledge. I look forward to hearing from you as you visit again and again!
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