Monday, June 24, 2013

Featured Location: Hidden Falls

So this week brought the arrival of one of the most anticipated groups of the summer, at least for me. Starting out the summer with a church group from Indiana sets the stage for all the craziness that we will encounter in the weeks to come and their southern, semi-hill billy culture becomes a great source of entertainment for us staffers. Don't get me wrong, this is a great group of people and I love the encouragement they bring to our staff every year.

Yesterday after our morning "church" service (Which actually consisted of Pastor Ken speaking rather than a podcast for once!) we decided on a whim to make the trek to hidden falls. Hidden falls is actually located below the power dam and requires a short drive, a short canoe, and a short hike to find. Tucked up in the hills by the Montreal, the landscape makes you feel like you stumbled on a Lord of the Rings set. Here are some pics of our trip up.
This would be the boat landing below the dam where we put our canoes in.
This is a view from the lower river as we worked our way towards the stream that creates hidden falls.
 Too cool huh? The hike up is filled with huge rocks and a section of the trail even goes strait up the creek. Unfortunately pictures just can't do the landscape justice. 
Here is a view of the creek we follow.
We made it! Here is our group sitting on the rocks at the foot of the falls
 And there it is all it's glory, Hidden Falls is a sight to behold.
Kasey and I just had to get our feet wet. I even managed to get over in front of the falls which only accomplished getting me soaking wet from the spray. 

So there you have it, arguably my favourite waterfall at CA. Not only was the hike beautiful, the Hoosiers were a great group to share the time with. I can't wait to see what the rest of the week has in store. For those of you praying for us, we have been having some problems keeping our internet working, it comes in and out at the most unpredictable intervals, and since that is the main form of communication we utilize up here things can get complicated quite quickly when it is not working at the proper times. But we know God is good... ALL the time. 

Friday, June 21, 2013

Lake Superior Provincial Park

So I know I haven't posted in a while, but quite honestly I've just been busy working and unless you want to see pictures of me cleaning, there hasn't been much to report. Wednesday, though we got the opportunity to take a staff day and decided to make the short drive up to Lake Superior Provincial Park and see some sights on Lake Superior. Being it is my third summer at CA, it is especially exciting to visit and do some hiking at a new place and it is always special when we get to spend some time, just the five of us staffers getting to know each other and taking a break from our regular duties. I figure the best way to relate our trip is to show the the pictures and let them do the talking. (I may have a few too many)


This is the Sand River (Ironic right... I guess there is sand down by Lake Superior) 
We got to hike back a ways on this river and it was one set of rapids or waterfalls after another. I'd love to come back later in the summer when the water is down and actually hike up the river on the rocks.
More waterfalls, I know... but if you saw all the pictures I had to narrow down too you'd understand why I kept this one, it is just too beautiful to eliminate. 

So after we hiked a short way up the Sand river, we got back in the van and drove down the coast a bit until Steve decided we should take some unmarked gravel road to see where it leads. It didn't go too far, but at the end of it we could hear running water so we hiked a bit until we found the Sand river again... this time from the other side and further inland. There was a nice little pond backed up behind yet another set of rapids.
Kasey and I decided we should push a log through the rapids, but we quickly found out it was a lot harder than it looked. we probably worked on that thing for 15 minutes just to get it through the first little step only to have it hang up again. I have a new appreciation for the force of water when you see whole trees that were moved with the spring high water and we could barely move that little log.
Our next, and last, stop was this stone wall called Agawa Rock right on the edge of Lake Superior. Thankfully the water was calm so we enjoyed sitting on the rock ledge and soaking up the sun.
 All along this rock wall were old Ojibwa paintings called pictographs. This is said to be Mishibizhiw, the Great Lynx who controled Lake Superior
And this was our view from Agawa Rock. It gives you an idea of the vastness of Lake Superior. I read on one of the guided signs that if you took all the water in Lake Superior you could cover all of North America 1.5 meters deep with water. That is a mind blowing amount of liquid.

So that was our afternoon out; sorry if that was too many pictures. We got to spend some time hiking and sunbathing... well in our jeans. We also took some time by Lake Superior to go over our goals and motives for working this summer. It was a great chance to slow down and communicate... aligning our ideas for the summer and bring our focus back to our purpose, putting God first. I'm getting really excited for campers to come, even though I'm glad they are not coming next week, the black flies would suck them dry. Meanwhile I'm going to take this slower time to soak in God's Word and enjoy the company of our staff, something that can become quite difficult when the craziness of camping sets in. 

We would all be grateful if you kept us in your prayers, and specifically if you could be praying for dry sunny weather so the black flies go away before our camping season starts we would all appreciate it. Thanks so much. 

Monday, June 10, 2013

Featured Location: Sanford's Sight


Sunday up here is often our day off, or at least part of it, so yesterday after a laid back morning and a podcast church service us staff and some volunteers we have up decided it was time to get out and hike a bit. Since we knew the black flies were going to be and issue, a short hike during the heat of the day was in order, hence our destination of Sanford's Sight was selected. 

For those of you old AWANA people, Sanford's Sight is a relatively new location about a 20 minute hike from base camp. Discovered by Steve Tice during one of the winter retreats, Sanford's Sight overlooks the Montreal River Valley below the river dam, and is quite honestly my favourite place to watch the sunset. Sanford's sight is named after the Sanford boys who spent many long hot hours cutting our Yandel 7 trail and in honour of their week of hard work this lookout now bares their name. Just last year a loop trail was added visiting a giant white pine before coming back to camp by way of the desert (the train washout). It makes for a nice hike that can easily be complete as an evening hike after supper.


Here are some pics from our trip
A bug infested pond by the trail
There is quite a bit of rock "walls" like this on the trip up. The look cool, but I think that in the time it took me to snap this picture I acquired 7 bug bites so I wasn't too anxious to take much more. 
The View
It was a little hazy as you can tell, but even still the picture just doesn't do this sight justice. It is such a grand sight up there.
Our hiking group, minus Joel, the photographer


Giant White Pine
 This giant tree is visible from the power road as you drive in to the boat landing as it towers over the other trees in the area.

Trey, trying the climb the tree...
And this is my brothers room mate being silly as usual... it was fun to have him and some of his family up to visit and work this week.

So while we had to keep moving most of the time to avoid the cloud of insects following us, it was great to get out and breath some fresh air. You can't beat spending the Lord's day in His handiwork and I'm grateful to be reminded of the blessing I have up here at CA serving in the company people who love God and the wilderness. 

Thursday, June 6, 2013

And We're Off

00:00:00. that is what my countdown to Canada reads! It is hard to believe after months and months and months (well okay maybe not that long) of waiting we are finally here. After a long hard day of shopping in Sault Ste. Marie it felt good to pull up to the familiar boat landing and breathe that backwoods Canadian air. I can’t even express the feeling when we rounded the point and got the first glance at Mt. Sinai, it was like coming home.

Of course everything wasn’t all butterflies and roses, by the time we got all our stuff across the river (food, luggage, parts, etc.), the kitchen unpacked, and supper eaten it was 10 o'clock. Yikes that is past my bedtime and I didn't even have a bed made yet.

Yesterday morning Steve was nice enough to let us sleep in a bit, but there is no such thing as starting off slow in Canada, so before I even have my room unpacked we made a trip up to 10 mile falls and ate a pack lunch at out our Patmos island cabin. It was fun to let Josh and Kasey, our new staffers, get to see a bit of the land up here. Even though I feel like I've seen it a million times, the grandness of the landscape up here grabs my attention every time.  What a great God we serve!

Here are a couple pictures from our little excursion yesterday. As you can tell from my head net, the black flies are out in full force, probably the worst I've ever seen. Trust me, as silly as that next looks, it is worth being saved from hundreds of red welts those black flies leave. Also note, the pictures are courtesy of Kasey, our cook.




So things are settling in up here, though we are still looking at a couple of days of cleaning before the lodge will look put together again. If you want to keep all of us in your prayers, it always takes a couple day to acclimate to the environment up here and the fresh air seems to drain the energy from us too quickly, something we need quite badly if we are ever going to be ready for campers in a couple of weeks.  Anyway it is time to sign off, until next time, God bless.