Have you got plans for this summer? There's one Canadian family making plans to move from Edmonton to Montreal -- by canoe. Benoit Gendreau-Berthiaume, Magali Moffat, and Mali are their names. Husband, wife, and five-year-old child.
This trip isn't quite as whimsical as it might seem. They are experienced paddlers. Last year, they canoed from Edmonton, Alberta to North Battleford, Saskatchewan, as a sort of training run. You can read about their summer plans on the CBC website at this link. The intrepid family is keeping a blog about their journey at PaddlingHome2015, complete with maps, bios and special events along the way -- and you can check their blog from time to time to follow their progress. I seriously recommend this blog to paddlers for many reasons, not the least of which is that the entire blog is very readable in both English and French.
Canoe trips like this used to be routine for the voyageurs and coureurs des bois. Recent trips of this kind are not unknown. You can find a CBC story about a Calgary family who took six summers to paddle their way across Canada, one summer vacation at a time till they finished in 2013. The Cross-Canada Canoe Odyssey brought six intrepid paddlers from Vancouver, BC to the Bay of Fundy in 2011.
It does sound wonderful, to make these grand journeys. But sometimes, I'm glad just to be doing so many day paddles here in the finest place in the world for sea kayaking.
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