OOPs

Clearly I am just learning how to do this "blogging thing" as my last two efforts at issuing this blog were made in the form of comments, see above.

I want to use this opportunity to welcome Bob Rieder as the first commitment to do a leg of the trip with me in July. He will join me in Fort Frances, Ontario on July 15 and paddle through Quetico Provincial Park to French Lake on Highway 11 near Atikokan. We will arrive at the latter July 29, after having crossed in turn Rainy, Namakan, Little Vermillion, and Loon Lakes, all on the boundary of US Voyageur National Park, and Lac la Croix before turning up the Maligne River system through Sturgeon, Olifaunt and Pickerel Lakes. From what I heard from brother in law Jim Munro, who did this trip in 1970, this is the very best part of the trip. Mary Ann a nd I spent two weeks in northern Quetico Park in 1973 and loved it -a combination of Muskoka Lakes and Algonquin Park without the crowds. I have had the pleasure of a number of sea kayak trips with Bob on the west coast of Vancouver Island as well as a canoe trip down theYukon River from Whitehorse to Dawson last summer. Our specialty is after a hard day of paddling and before bedding down having a glass of Scotch with a Cuban cigar: Heaven. We are hoping that our friend Bob Rebagliati will see his way clear to joining us.

It is a sizable commitment these men will make for the "cause" and I love and respect them for it. Apart from giving up two weeks of their holidays, Bob Rieder runs an emergent pharmaceutical company, they are undertaking to fly to Winnipeg from Vancouver and then by vehicle to Kenora for outfitting followed by the trip down the width of Lake of the Woods to Fort Frances, Of course, they have to make their way back with canoe and vehicle to Kenora and then Winnipeg. Can you say commitment!