One day this summer, the Town of Athabasca was honored to greet Marc Van Grinsven and Dan Blessing. Two young adventurer's setting to voyage across wild terrain on a 205 day, 3800 mile expedition from Lake Superior to the Pacific Ocean by birch bark canoe. The canoe was hand crafted, taking over 700 hours and using only tools, materials and techniques used in the era of the Voyageurs.
(Darcy and Shirley in Centre flanked by Dan and Marc and the fossil freaks Tim Skippy Miller & pal)
Friends of mine, Darcy and Shirley have a beautiful wilderness cabin resort along the Athabasca River, 5 hours downstream of our town site. (
www.athabasca-river.com ) Weekend trips to the cabins are a regular part of their summers, but this particular day, they noticed two paddlers heading Upstream (our river was quite high and the current was strong this summer). Being the only other humans out there, they decided to spend some time making each others acquaintance. The stories Dan and Marc shared were awe inspiring, and upon returning to Athabasca, Darcy and Shirley planned for our community to give them a proper welcome once they reached our shores. Businesses and citizens were thrilled to meet these modern day voyageurs with a very warm welcome.
I can't tell you the story as well as these two guys can, so please, follow their blog. The story is absolutely amazing and I am thrilled to say, they made their destination faster than they had even planned. I hope we get another chance to see them up here again!
http://www.paddleforsustainability.org/Paddle_For_Sustainability/Welcome.html
I've already been trading some tweets with them on the River twitter feed...they're planning another epic canoe trip this summer, and yes, they will be coming through Athabasca again.
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