CANOE ADVENTURES & TRAINING COURSES
AGES 9 – ADULT
Wilderness First Aid/ White-Water Rescue Courses
Youth Programs - lakes & whitewater canoe trips - whitewater kayaking trips - leadership programs
Family Canoe Expeditions Adult and Custom Adventures
The normally gin-clear Bonaventure in more settled days.
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THE FUTURE OF OUTDOORS
happy bus, an old school bus painted in the red, white and blue tricolour of this proudly Acadian region, would pick us up in two hours. With an emerging sun punctuating our safe arrival, the group began trying to make sense of their first whitewater experience. Down by the water’s edge, I noticed Gilles and Christian in a huddle and strolled down to meet them.
Christian, a confident, easy-going young guide who has worked for Gilles for several seasons wanted to run the rest of the river and was looking for a partner. Before I could stop
myself, I pulled on my lifejacket again and grabbed a paddle. Christian gestured toward the bow of the boat and I nodded. Soon we were waving adieu to the group and ferrying our way back into the muddy current. Christian has been guiding on this river for years but he had never seen it this high, not even in spring flood. He’d point out land- marks and tell me what they normally looked like and I’d marvel at how watersheds can col- lect and discharge so much water. I pulled out my GPS and shook my head. The satellites were clocking us at 19 kilome- tres per hour. We were 40 kilometres upriver of Cime Aventure’s base camp. Adistance that would take some groups two days to cover would take us two hours. There were, howev- er, a few things to turn our attention to before pulling out. The rapids in this section were normally class II and III. It was impossible to predict whether they would be completely flooded and washed out, or larger and more difficult. A flooded river is an unpredictable thing.
Christian was sure the highlight (or per- haps lowlight) of the journey would be where the Duval River drained into the Bonaventure. This tributary would be carrying a huge vol- ume of water, wood and debris, which would pile into the main stream of the Bonaventure, creating massive standing waves, swirling boils and river-wide holes. As we approached the Duval we passed mobile trailers floating in the woods, swamped fishing boats and even a couple of kayaks hauled up into the bush. We ploughed into some bushes just below the kayaks to see if anyone needed assistance, but there was nobody to be found. It looked like a group had abandoned their trip and taken an overland route.
I began to weigh the pros and cons of such a plan, but Christian read my mind, “We have
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