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Les Voyageurs sont arrives!
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Voyageur Photos
- One of the highlights of the credit program is our “immense voyage”, a 10 day canoe trip into the Boundary Waters Wilderness Canoe Area, one of America’s premier wilderness areas
- Riviere, one of the villagers, and our most intrepid photographer takes a picture of the handiwork of a hardworking beaver. Our group crossed more than 40 beaver dams during our trip.
- Every night in the wilderness ends with the challenge of hanging “le sac ours”, a bear bag high enough up in the trees to make sure that les ours don’t come and eat all of our provisions for the next week!
- French classes happen anywhere and everywhere! This was at our campsite on Steep Lake, after a long day of challenging paddling and portaging, villagers rest their bodies but push their minds as credit teacher Bertrand helps them prepare for their presentations on Voyageur history
- A typical odyssey camp site - with our tents pitched, a sac ours (bear bag) thrown, and students working on their presentations for later that night.
- this year’s Credit staff was headed by Bertrand Ngwesse from Cameroun, in his second summer working with a French credit program. Voyageur Dean Dahveed Benson also helped run the credit program this summer. This photo was taken from the beautiful and rocky Steep lake campsite.
- A typical “repos manger” – a break to eat lunch after we’d already paddled 5 miles and carried our gear over 3 portages! The views are always “magnifique”!
- French truly happens everywhere and anywhere! We usually have a “bourgeois” during the credit trip – named after the former managers of the fur trade, these were the clerks and other special guests who didn’t need to paddle. In our case, the “bourgeois” is responsible for sharing stories with the group.
- Jacques pauses to smile in front of one of the 100’s of rocky cliffs that we paddle past as we crossed 22 lakes, 4 rivers, and countless numbers of islands.
- Our Credit Facilitator and teacher Bertrand, organizes a quick lesson on the conditional tense!
- One of our villagers, “La Longue Carrabine” poses in front of the mystical and ancient Native American pictographs on Lac La Croix (Lake of the Cross). Painted all over these magnificent cliffs, we found images of moose, canoes, handprints, and mystical figures like this one seen in the upper right
- Truly one of the highlights of our trip, the credit villagers pose atop “la colline des geurriers” (Warrior Hill) a missive granite hill rising out of Lac la Croix. Legends tell of how young Ojibwe would race up this hill in order to prove their bravery, strength, and skill. Here our entire group poses near the summt.
- Louis, a long time CLV staff member and former Voyageur villager joined Dahveed and Bertrand on the Odyssey staff for the boundary waters portion of the journey. Here all 3 “monos” pose on top of “la Colline des Guerriers.”
- The Voyageur Odyssey villagers were an incredible team, and they worked hard, paddled hard, portaged hard, had a great time, learned a lot of Francais and Voyageur history, and had an adventure of a lifetime!!! (from left to right, Riviere, Helene, Marie-Claire. Medard, Jacques, La Longue Carrabine)
- One of our villagers, Jacques, ponders the amazing view from atop Warrior Hill, looking out across Lac La Croix, our next lake to paddle across.
- Bertrand and Medard help load our canoes early in the morning as we prepare to head out before sunrise in order to enjoy our first full moon paddle.
- Rounding the bend on Lac la Croix after about 30 minutes of full moon paddling, we enjoyed this magnificent sunrise.
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Bonjour et Bienvenue
We’ve had a great first week here at Les Voyageurs! This weekend, we’ll be starting our Grand Voyage – a five day canoe trip through Voyageurs National Park.
There’s no electricity or WiFi in the wilderness, so we’ll be leaving the laptops at home. Check back with us next week for more pictures!
Everyone taking turns to fill the "bidons" we use at Voyageurs to wash our hands.
Amelie and Lucide posing with the "feu" they helped make.
Members of a brigade, Grand Portage, helping to prepare "le super" (chili!) for the entire camp.
Our chef cuisinier, Hubert, with his new specialty: chickens, held in place with strings, suspended over the open fire.
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