TORONTO, May 20, 2021 /CNW/ – North AmericanSafe Boating Awareness Week will take place across Canada from May 22nd to May 28th, 2021. The purpose of this initiative, managed by the CSBC (Canadian Safe Boating Council) and its partners, is to promote safe and responsible boating practices
SBAW 2021 – From powerboats, to sailboats, to paddle craft, we know Canada’s waterways will be busy. Learn how to stay safe this summer. (CNW Group/Canadian Safe Boating Council)
In Canada, 16 million people enjoy recreational boating. That number is going up, some say by large double-digit percentage increases (20, 30 even 40 %), driven the past and this coming year by Covid-19. Social distancing and restricted travel have been keeping people closer to home. Marine dealers across North America have reported empty shelves of boating safety gear and exhausted inventories of new and used boats as many people new to boating have made purchases and are taking to the water for the first time.
Although this ‘new’ to boating group has made boating safety information more critical than ever before, prior to COVID, boating safety was still an important communication by boating safety educators and advocates to make boaters more aware of their roles and responsibilities to themselves, their passengers, other boaters and those on shore.
There are five key boating safety messages directed towards the most common boating related accidents. They include:
Quest began after Aurora’s David Lee found an old map from before the First World War
CBC News · Posted: Sep 06, 2020 6:00 AM ET | Last Updated: September 6
This coming week, a group of Ontario paddlers will be trekking along crown land northwest of Sudbury to re-open a century-old canoe route. (Submitted/David Lee)
This week, five women will set out with adventurer David Lee looking for some some lost history.
They’re on a canoe trip to rediscover an old route that’s not been used in decades. That means bushwhacking through overgrown portages — not unlike the early voyageurs would have done.
This quest began after Aurora’s David Lee found a 1914 canoe route map. One particular route sparked his interest — northwest of Sudbury, near the Mississagi River and Russian Lake.
Jackson Morton’s paddle travelled hundreds of kilometres before washing up onshore
CBC News · Posted: Aug 30, 2020 5:00 AM ET
Jackson Morton, seen here canoeing in the Moisie River in Quebec, where he would later lose his favourite paddle. (Submitted by Jackson Morton)
Jackson Morton loves taking long canoe trips in the Canadian wilderness, but it turns out his favourite paddle has an even bigger appetite for adventure.
The outdoor education major at Queen’s University was working for Camp Hurontario and leading a canoe trip on the Moisie River in Quebec last year when the paddle got away from him during a stretch of rough water.
He “ended up tipping over into a rapid,” he told Ismaila Alfa, host of CBC Radio’s Metro Morning.
“When we popped up the paddle was gone.”
‘I sort of expected it was gone’
A lengthy search failed to turn it up, and as the weeks and months went by, Morton lost hope that anyone would find it.
“Once tripping season was over I sort of expected it was gone,” he said.
After tripping season ended last summer, Morton didn’t expect to see his paddle again. (Submitted by Jackson Morton)
It was made in the style of legendary Ontario paddle-maker Ray Kettlewell, with the “perfect balance between the blade and the shaft.” That made it special, Morton said.
But while he mourned the loss, the paddle was on the move, travelling down the Moisie and into the St. Lawrence River.
Paddle found
One year later, Parks Canada employee Kent Baylis was on vacation with his family about 30 kilometres east of Baie Comeau, Quebec.
His girlfriend came back from a walk with some news: she had found a paddle that had washed up on the beach.
That Baylis and his family were the ones who found the paddle is a special stroke of luck, Morton explained to Alfa.
Though he lives in Quebec, Baylis grew up in Ontario, and is “one of the few people who would have recognized what it was,” he said.
The paddle as it looked when it washed up near Baie-Comeau, where Kent Baylis found it while on vacation. (Submitted by Kent Baylis )
Baylis saw Morton’s name and the Fishell Paddles mark, and contacted the company, who posted it on Instagram.
Morton had just popped out of the water after a swim when friends alerted him to post, and “within five minutes I was on the phone with Kent.”
While the paddle remains in Quebec, Baylis hopes to hand-deliver it to Morton the next time he visits family in southern Ontario, and Morton says he’ll be happy to have it back.
Baylis, who has lived in Quebec for a decade, recognized the distinctive Ray Kettlewell-style paddle from his summers in northern Ontario. (Submitted by Kent Baylis )
The enduring mystery? Where the paddle went during its year away.
“It must have come out of the mouth of the Moisie somewhere near Sept-Iles. Then it would have had to survive the winter,” said Baylis.
“Then it made its way about 150 kilometres further west along the coastline [of the St. Lawrence],” he added.
“It’s pretty rugged terrain… I’m quite surprised it ended up where it did.”
Toronto explorer Mario Rigby successfully wrapped up a 20-day trip on Thursday kayaking the length of Lake Ontario.
“Every year I try to do a big challenge,” said Rigby, who has an extraordinary resumé of adventures he’s done, including cycling across Canada from B.C. to Newfoundland and crossing Africa, from South Africa to Egypt, by foot and kayak.
“I want[ed] to kayak all of the Great Lakes, but I didn’t have the timeline,” he explained. So he opted for Lake Ontario. “It’s local, it’s home, and I [thought I could] probably do it in less than a month.”
If you’re looking for an Ontario hidden gem to visit, say no more. French River Provincial Park is an interconnected waterway of gorges, lakes and rapids waiting for you to paddle through. You can navigate the water to get to your campsite on this historic river used in the earliest years of Canadian history.
According to Ontario Parks, it is Canada’s first designated Heritage River.
Located in Alban, Ontario, it is a watercourse that Indigenous people, French explorers and fur traders once used.
Paddlers can have the lake to themselves and support businesses missing out on American tourism
On Lake of the Woods, there are more than 14,500 islands for paddlers to hide behind if the wind gets too high.
The problem is, they’re not evenly spaced out like socially distanced shoppers lined up outside a Costco during a pandemic.
The northern basin most familiar to visitors from Manitoba has thousands of islands, many of them dotted with the cottages and camps. So does Whitefish Bay on the east side of the lake and Sabaskong Bay to the south.
Canadian Trails - Sentiers Canadiens 