Bonjour encore! It is now after the Grand Voyage, both FZ62 and FZ64 wrote some poems the day after we got back from the voyage. The poems are voyageur themed and contain words that are specific to the voyageurs and maybe even only the Voyageurs camp, so your children may need to explain them to you. So without further ado, Les poèmes!
Welcome! A new session has begun at Les Voyageurs language camp (in fact, 2, FB62 and FB64). Yesterday everybody arrived on site, and passed through La Duane (Customs). Here each child chose a french name, which they will use for the rest of the session. Next we took our first voyage, across the lac in Le Grand Canot (Canoe). Upon arriving, everyone relaxed a little bit and moved in to their tents, this is where we will be living until we part for Le Grand Voyage (Tous est grand chez les voyageurs). Then we returned the the main area of the site, and had a little gouté (snack) of fruit and cake.
After everyone was settled in, we had our first mean together, le souper, we had our first taste of Roubabou, a traditional Quebecois and Voyageur stew. In fact, any villager that eats le Roubabou meal available will receive a special surprise! The villagers then proceed to le feu du camp (camp fire), where they each made their own contribution to the fire, very symbolic. We look forward to a session where everybody contributes in the work that is necessary of the voyageurs, but also in all the fun that we will be having, just as everybody played their part in creating the fire on the first night.
And without further ado, les photos!
Dear Parents and Friends,
Bonjour! We have just returned from the 2 week “Grand Voyage” and the credit, 4 week “immense Voyage”, and we’ve had quite the amazing summer. I’d like to personally apologize for our inability to get any updates onto our Voyageur web page so far this summer. Our small staff was focused on our program on site and during the trip, and in both locations we have little or no access to the Internet, making regular updates to our website challenging. Fortunately our technological roadblocks were not reflective of the rest of our program, and we’ve had one of the best groups that I’ve seen in a long time. We’d like to share few photos and stories of our adventures over the past week with you. If all goes as planned these should all appear shortly on the web, but I wanted to try to share this with you via email as well, in case we have more technical glitches.
This 2 week session has been fantastique! During one of our first evenings at base camp, we took all the Voyageurs out on the lake to watch the sunset.
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We were able to pull all the canoes into a circle and sang some chansons as we took in the magnificent coucher de soleil over Turtle River Lake. After interacting with villagers from more than 10 different Language Villages at International Day later that week, we headed off for our ‘Grand Voyage.’ The weather couldn’t have been better, as we had lots of sun, almost no rain, and no major storms. Remarkably, we saw temperatures varying from 40 to 90 degrees this summer.
For our voyage, the group split into two brigades, traveling independently through Voyageurs National Park. Grand Portage and Montréal had a trip full of adventures and unexpected surprises. Here is a picture of Grand Portage’s first campsite in the National Park, a magnificent spot atop a high cliff on McManus Island overlooking Namakan Lake.
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You will also find a few pictures of both groups’ favorite experiences during our trip: Grand Portage’s sailboat…
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Montréal’s raft…
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and both groups’ moonlight/sunrise paddle.
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The sailboat was a group creation that came together in less than 10 minutes when Grand Portage faced high winds pushing at their backs. Once the sail was up and catching wind, they managed to make record time crossing the lake, sailing more than 3 miles without a break. Montréal had a fantastic time first dressing up for and then building a raft. Although the original plan to haul the raft behind a canoe did not quite work out, the activity was still a great success.
To make the last full day of canotage in Voyageurs National Park even more special, both brigades got up early enough to watch the sunrise on the lake. The colors were beautiful at 5:30 AM, and everyone agreed that the sight was well worth the early wake-up. Grand Portage woke up at 2:33 in the morning, so that they could break camp, and were able to be on the water in time to canoe with the almost full moon, and later the sunrise. It was the perfect day for this kind of adventure, with no winds, calm waters, and a nice, cool temperature. You will find a picture at the end of our trip, as Grand Portage celebrates a successful crossing of the National Park, posing atop one of Minnesota’s famous kitchy statues: the fish that was so big, you could ride it on a saddle!
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And finally, the whole Voyageur group stopped to take a picture by Crane Lake’s famous Statue of a Voyageur.
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The counselors are standing up on the base of the statue.
Merci et à bientôt We hope this little update reaches you before the end of our session,
Sincerement le votre,
Dahveed Benson
Dean, French Voyageur
Au revoir a tout le monde et bonne fin d’ete! (Good bye and have a great rest of your summers!) We hope to see you all back next year. We Voyageurs are a little slow when it comes to learning all the fancy new technology of the modern era, and so we apologize to those of you who sent emails through the new CLV email system. We have only just now figured out how to access this, so it will be up and running for next summer. Sorry again for this communications snafu, and merci for your patience with us! Enjoy a few final photos of our amazing summer of Voyageurs 2010!!!
While on their trip through the boundary waters, our Credit Voyageurs each completed their own projet artisanal (crafts project). We all enjoyed hearing about their historical significance and the fabrication process as each Voyageur presented his or her craft during the Grand Rendez-Vous at base camp! What talented young craftsmen (and women)!
Our sincere apologies for the lack of posts during the last week but we have been without internet and technology for quite some time! We have just completed another fabulous trip through Voyageur National Park with our two weekers and have returned from our Grand Voyage with many stories to tell and photos to share. Our voyageurs took on many great défis (challenges) with much success including traverser le lac (swimming across the lake), theatre/histoire (our villagers conquered the challenge of combining theater and history in a comical musical presentation), and mastering la vie sauvage! Here is a selection of photos from our trip; many more can be found through Dahveed’s facebook page too if you are interested (search for David Benson once you are signed on).
Although we were very sad to have to say goodbye to our first group of two-weekers, we were pleased to welcome our second group to camp on Monday! We have already enjoyed two activity filled days together, learning various Voyageurs skills and getting to know each other. We look forward to the next two weeks ahead of us with such an eager and enthusiastic group! Bienvenue les Voyageurs!
Au revoir...
...et Bienvenue!
Avant de dire au revoir á nos chers voyageurs de deux semaines, on a eu l’occasion de fêter tous ensemble. (Before saying goodbye to our dear two-week voyageurs, we had the opportunity to celebrate our time together.) We spent our last evening celebrating not only the past two weeks we had enjoyed together, but also the 50th birthday of Cameroon! After dancing the traditional danse de la pagaie (paddle dance) and sharing a final meal around the feu de camp, we joined nos amis á Lac du Bois as well as our Cameroonian staff members including Bertrand and Patrick Roger for an evening of music and laughter to wish Cameroon a very happy 50th birthday! What a wonderful way to end our first session!
La Danse de la Pagaie
Bonne Anniversaire Cameroun!
On vient de retourner chez nous après avoir passer un super bon voyage au Parc Nationale des Voyageurs! (We have once again returned to base camp after a wonderful voyage through Voyageurs National Park!) Our trip was filled with excitement and adventure as we paddled through our beautiful surroundings, watching the sun rise over the water after an early “Voyageurs Start”, enjoying a post-storm rainbow emerge through the clouds, and relentlessly moving forward through strong winds with a true Voyageur spirit. Here is an array of photos to give you sense of some of the many sights we were fortunate enough to absorb during our time en voyage!
On est très fier de nos voyageurs! (We are very proud of our Voyageurs!) Everyone successfully completed their test de chevirement (canoe flip test) this morning, once again proving themselves to be extremely eager and competent young Voyageurs. We are now almost ready to set out on our grand voyage! We have one last morning of final preparations tomorrow before heading up to Lac Kabetogama-le 8ieme plus grand lac dans tout Minnesota! (the 8th largest lake in all of Minnesota!) where we will camp for the night before beginning our journey en canoë early Saturday morning. Here is Lake Kabetogama’s website if you would like to get a better feel for where we will begin our voyage: http://www.kabetogama.com/
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