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.

Crazy Water Levels

If you think that the delay in warm weather this spring was bad here, just be glad you weren't spending the winter season up at Canadian Adventure. It stayed so cold so long up north this year that the NBI student trip to open up the camp had to be canceled due to the amount of snow and the fact that the river might still be partially frozen.... in MAY!!

Since the student trip was unable to make it up this year, Steve and Troy, a maintenance guy from Silver Birch, made a quick trip up to CA to check things out before our staff heads up in a couple weeks. And a quick trip it was; going up on Monday and coming back on Tuesday, they put on over 18 hours of driving time in the overnight trip.

For those of you seasoned veterans of CA, I thought I'd share a couple pics and videos of the crazy water levels on the reservoir the guys saw while they were up north and the amount of water coming through the dam systems.



Dock and Lighthouse

 The water is right up under the lighthouse, Troy says you can even hear the water sloshing up against the floor boards. I guess it would be kind of convenient to drive the boats right up to the deck though.

Boat Landing

And as for the boat landing... well... what boat landing? it is all under water... 

Here is a video of the dam you drive across down river, it is amazing the amount of water you can see come spewing out of that thing. 

All this talk and these pictures just make me even more excited to get this summer rolling, if that is even possible. So even though Steve and Troy reported lingering snowbanks... I can't wait to get started. Only 11 days 11 hours and 41 minutes until we head up! 

Counting days

It's that time again... counting down the days till we pack up our stuff and head up to Canada. In the process off all this prepping  I thought I had best update the blog and get thing rolling here because I promise I'm going to do a better job this summer on keeping you all in the loop with our doings up north. So hold on, it is only 19 days, 10 hours and 57 min till we hit the road for this summer's Canadian Adventure.

Cookies, Cookies, Cookies, and Pie...

When it comes to an upriver trip, one of the must haves, at least food wise, is cookies. And since people like to consume cookies in large quantities, I have the honor of making them in large quantities, thus requires baking days.

On this particular day, my baking goals were somewhere around 200 cookies, 2 pies and some granola. This actually is a quite small amount so instead of pumping out one mega batch of chocolate chip cookies I decided to try out several new recipes. We did everything from molasses cookies to chocolate chip to peanut butter and more, all from the old Betty crocker recipe book of course, it is my favorite. 

And that was only the cookies. Mom put together some pretty tasty apple pies, and we got a good double batch of granola going as well. 

Mom and I had a grand old time, but I'll tell you after 6 hours in the kitchen you start to get a little loopy and messy, or maybe I just always am. Unfortunately I didn't get and pictures of Mom, but she was just as goofy and messy, non the less. 

All in all, it was some great mother daughter bonding time and mostly everything turned out good. We over shot our cookie goal and ended up with over 325 so we are still munching on the cookies yet. As always, it's and adventure in Canada! 

Staff Trip to the Trout Lakes

When we have a day off in Canada, which are few and far between, you might ask what is there to do. Immediately I would say SLEEP, but sometimes we opt for a little more adventure and thus began our outing to the Trout Lakes.

The Trout Lakes are a chain of lakes across from Mt. Sinai and all it takes is a short hike to enjoy some beautiful country, making it perfect for our little outing. There are 5 lakes in all (or so I've been told) but we just make our way to the third one for the time being.

 In order to continue on the trail to the second lake, a canoe ride across the first lake is required. You can see the water is pretty low on this lake because the beaver dam blew out a couple years ago, but it is still navigable by canoe... mostly. I'm not going to lie, I was a little worried that Wes was going to get me soaking wet, but it turned out he didn't need to because we got caught in a little cloud burst. Thankfully it passed through and we continued on our way, a little soggy.

Of course we had to stop for a break (it was our day off!) and Mom, Wes and I were quick to sport our camel backs. I think we make wonderful models don't you? Maybe we'll be on some backpacking magazine someday.

The trail proved to be a nice one, and after another 2 min we found ourselves at the end of the third lake, (the second one is nothing much to mention) We had the interesting experience of crossing the beaver dam, thus re wetting our feet. It always amazes me how the beavers can build such a strong dam, that was holding back a LOT of water. One of God many great intricate designs! Of course I had to pose as Sacagawea... and pick on Wes a bit. I can't be to normal you see, because that would make Steve to happy (for those of you who don't know, Steve's goal for the summer is to make me normal... not happening!)

I love my Mom and Dad!

From the point on we bushwhacked our way to a large rocky lookout, the culmination of our trip. It took some climbing to get up there, but the view was gorgeous. What a great way to spend the day: in God's creation and with the best of company. (For those of you wondering where Dylan was, this was back when he was still sick, but don't worry, he has been here twice since) As always, it's an adventure in Canada!

Getting Started

41 days 3 min and 2 seconds till we leave