Paddling for Squeah

This past weekend I spent two gorgeous days on the Fraser River in a canoe, paddling from Hope all the way to Fort Langley. I checked Google Maps for the distance by following the road distance on the No. 7 highway, which pretty much runs parallel to the river. It was 100 kms.

Each year the Paddle-a-Thon raises funds that are put towards the Camp Squeah Summer Staff Bursary Fund. This fund was established to help our volunteer staff who return to college or university after the summer, to still be able to spend their summers at camp and have something to put towards the ever rising costs of tuition. (This description is a quote directly from the camp website.)

I wasn't taking pictures, but there were lots of pictures taken, so hopefully I'll be about to get those for you later.

The VERY COOL thing was that in the end, we found out that a total of $51,000 was raised - with only 1/2 the paddlers of last year - 18 in all.

I was in a 2-person canoe with my friend, Gerald Dyck. The journey has us on the water Saturday morning and afternoon with a lunch break on a sand bar along the way. Then we camp for night at a spot north of Chilliwack. There is an amazing support crew that brings all our camping stuff and cooks supper for us. We just have to pitch our tents and go to bed.

Well, actually, the camp's Program Director (Tim Larson) has a friend living only 5 minutes from our camp site, and Tim invited anyone who was interested in watching the 2nd game of the Vancouver/Los Angeles Stanley Cup series, to join him. Who would turn down an invitation like that? It was a bit strange to go watch the game on a big screen in someone's nice house in the midst of our wilderness trip. Too bad the Canucks lost.

I have had some experience canoing in lakes, but river water is very different. Thankfully I got to take the front seat. Day One has the challenging water. On Day Two it's pretty wide open river - and I mean "wide". The Fraser takes up a lot of space at some places. On Day One (between Hope and Chilliwack), we had 4 or 5 narrow places with eddies and whirl pools that we had to carefully navigate, and then power through the rough waters in between. The calm before the rough water was a bit unnerving, but the calm after was rather comforting and satisfying. Gerald and I managed all the tough spots. In fact, of the one big canoe, the two 2-person canoes, and the four kayaks, only one kayak overturned once!

Day Two brought us to a lovely soup and sandwich lunch at a park just west of the Mission bridge, and then a pizza supper to close at Fort Langley.

It was amazing to take in the beautiful surroundings of nature. You see the back side of the mountains that are to the north of the No. 1 highway through the Fraser Valley. On day two we stopped for a mid-afternoon break on a beach along the way. When we got out of the canoes and looked back - at the centre of the view, framed by the mountains that rise up on either side of the river, was the beautiful snow-capped Mount Baker. It would have been to our backs all the time, but we didn't know.