Local youth canoe trip gets national exposure
An annual canoe trip for teens organized by the Rotary Club of Peterborough Kawartha has been featured in Rotary’s national magazine.
A piece about the club’s Adventure in Understanding program was published in the January 2021 edition of the Rotary Canada magazine.
The annual Adventure in Understanding canoe trip was established by Don Watkins of the Rotary Club of Peterborough Kawartha in 2014.
The program brings together 20 Indigenous and non-Indigenous teens aged 16 to 18 for a 100-kilometre canoe trip along the Trent-Severn Waterway.
The six-day trip begins at Beavermead Park in Peterborough and ends at Curve Lake First Nation, guided by Glen Caradus.
Caradus, along with three other leaders, educate students about the basics of paddling and help them navigate the 125year-old Peterborough Lift Lock on their way to Curve Lake First Nation in eight-metre voyageur canoes.
Several pit stops are made along the way. “A water teaching with a knowledge keeper in the Trent University teepee, sleeping in the teepee and practising skills such as archery, atlatl and axe throwing at Camp Kawartha, and listening to an elder share the importance of the sacred petroglyphs,” according to the club.
Watkins attended two events in Peterborough that led to the idea of a six-day canoe trip, according to the article in Rotary Canada.
“The first was a lecture by the Canadian author Joseph Boyden, who told the story of a Cree man who walked for 31 days with his son and several other First Nations people to the inaugural Truth and Reconciliation National Event, held in Winnipeg in 2010. Along the way they talked, shared stories and learned from one another,” the article states.
The second event was a presentation by James Raffan of the Canadian Canoe Museum.
“There was an aha moment when I realized we could encourage young First Nations and non-native youth to share a canoe trip on the Trent-Severn Waterway that flows in and around Peterborough,” Watkins said. “A canoe trip would put those young people in touch with the water, the air, the plants, the animals, and, most importantly, with each other.”
A short documentary from the program’s 2019 trip is posted at bit.ly/3oeaXOm. To read the publication in Rotary Canada, visit bit.ly/3pN4r1i.
Marissa Lentz is a staff reporter at the Examiner, based in Peterborough. Her reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. Reach her via email: mlentz@peterboroughdaily.com