This article about a young family’s voyage by canoe along the Great Lakes’ coastline was first pulished in the 2003 issue of Canoeroots and Family Camping magazine.
As we paddled out into Pigeon Bay, the bon voyage salute of blackpowder musket fire and droning bagpipes echoed from the hills. Sila, our two-year-old daughter, raised her paddle, waving enthusiastically to the entourage of well-wishers that had come to see us off. Kalija, our nine-year-old Alaskan malamute, settled in behind my bow seat with her chin resting on the gunwale, eyes closed.
Our specialty designed 20’8″ cedars trip canoe was handling the 800-pound load of communications and photography equipment, camping gear, food and other essentials with ease. After months of planning and preparations, we were setting off on our Great Lakes Heritage Coat Voyage from Lake Superior’s Pigeon River at the Minnesota-Ontario border to Port Severn on Georgian Bay.
In 1999 when the Great Lakes Heritage Coast program was adopted by the Ontario government as a result of the Lands for Life planning process, we were made official “Champions of the Coast” …
Continue reading this article in the digital edition of Canoeroots and Family Camping, Spring 2003, on our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it on your desktop here.
