We’re all packed up and ready to go on our Grand Voyage! We’ve spent the past week preparing: lessons in feu, tentes, et VC Sauvage (fires, tents, and Wilderness Washrooms), not to mention honing our canoe skills. Yesterday we were trading places within the canoe, and the day before we practiced les chavirements (tipping)! Some were very good at the latter and kept going back in to the cold lake for more. Of course we learned to put the canoes upright again.

Amik carries his canoe out of the water.

Somewhere in there we’ve found time to make repas (meals), nage (swim), do some native crafts, work on a construction project, learn lots and LOTS of chansons (songs), and even get a bit of fur trade history. We’ve been super busy and are looking forward to the paix (peace) of the Voyage.

Ariane, Isabelle, Etienne, Six-Cordes, and Amik work on their sac a feu.

This morning we’re completing the final preparations before jumping into our canots roulants (vans) for the drive up to Voyageurs National Park. We’ll spend the next five days paddling lakes Kabetogama, Namakan, and Crane, waking up with (and sometimes before!) the sun, setting up a new site each night. In the past day there have been lots of comments about how ready we feel and how exicted we are to get moving, so that’s just what we’re going to do. We’ll report back with some of our adventures next week!

La plage! It will be lonely without us, but we'll find plenty of other beaches on the Voyage.