On August 19th, 2008 a friend brought us paddle #082. We carefully added it to our paddle bag and headed from Brantford, Ontario to the Magnetawan Access point in Algonquin Provincial Park. Bryan, Tobias (7) and I were camping with our friends, Michael and Samantha and their three children, Owen (6), Lily (5) and Ethan (1). The youngest in our group just celebrated his first birthday so with that in mind we decided to base camp on Little Trout Lake for the weekend.
 
#082 travelled through several little lakes and over a few portages to the lake. Our friend, Michael, did some great things with the boys. Tobias and Owen participated in a controlled capsize and re-entry and then later Michael tethered the canoe so that Tobias and Lily could play around on the water without going too far. It was wonderful to see Tobias paddling in the stern. I also found it difficult — my little boy is growing up fast.
 
Here are some photos of the little couple paddling on Little Trout Lake and Tobias is proudly using paddle #082 for his first time in the stern.



 
Thank you for the opportunity to do this. Paddle #082 makes its way to Hikers Haven in Oakville, ON this Saturday where it will head directly to Temagami to be handed over to another paddler by Alex Mathais at the Changing of the Seasons ceremony.
 
Laurie Ann March
 

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Last year I ended up leaving my spare paddle on a portage put-in while paddling with the family in Ontario's Chiniguichi area. It had something to do with a nuisance bear stalking us and nasty storm heading our way (see previous Lost Paddle post on my blog – Explore-meg.com - for the entire story). But I got the paddle back - that is after the person who found it (owner of Sportsman Lodge) lent it out to paddlers all season. It ended up to be a real cool thing to happen to me though. I eventually got the paddle back, gathered all the stories of where it had been by the people who borrowed it, and then lent it out again to keep the stories going.

That story is what kind of  led to the creation of the Canadian Canoe Museum's National Canoe Day blog "Paddle, Post and Pass it On project.

So what's this note all about? Well, I was handed paddle # 2 (2008) and thought it would be really cool to take that paddle on our family trip this year, take a photo of it on the same portage I left the other one on, and then pass the paddle on to the owner of Sportsman Lodge.

Hope #2 has a great adventure...

 

Kevin Callan



 

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