I Think Jay Likes It!

A while ago, back when the weather was nice and the rain less constant, half of the NSE crew enjoyed some pulled pork and a "bacon explosion" from the smoker. I wrote about it in my regular blog and you can find it with pictures at http://pawistik.blogspot.com/2010/04/pulled-pork.html.

Swimming

"I thought I told you to keep an eye on Jay", Sheri said to Rod. "Where is he?" "Well," Rod replied thoughtfully, "if Jay knows as much about canoeing as he thinks he does, he's out canoeing. If he knows as little as I think he does, he's out swimming."

Wear A Sweater

Four married guys go fishing. After an hour or two on the water, the following conversation took place. Rod: "You have no idea what I had to do to be able to come out fishing this weekend. I had to promise my wife that I will paint every room in the house next weekend." Jay: "That's nothing, I had to promise my wife that I will build her a new deck with a hot-tub." Rob: "Man, you both have it easy! I had to promise my wife that I will remodel the kitchen for her, again." They continue to fish when they realized that Bryan has not said a word. So they asked him "You haven't said anything about what you had to do to be able to come fishing this weekend. "What's the deal?" Bryan: "I just set my alarm for 5:30 am. When it went off, I shut off my alarm, gave the wife a nudge and said, "Fishing or Sex" and she said, "Wear a Sweater."

An April Fools Adventure

A couple of weeks ago, on April 1st, NSE announced it's big plans for a grand expedition. This trip was big - over 3000km, the first thousand of which was across the prairie and farmland of Saskatchewan following creeks, ditches and small rivers. Some of the route was standard fare having been utilised by natives and fur-traders for hundreds of years or more. Other parts of the trip were a little more unique and off the beaten path. Most of that first 1000km is only navigable during a narrow window of spring runoff. Furthermore, the 1000km estimate for the first third was highly conservative - we simply got tired of measuring all those meanders in the small rivers. Finally, to make things even more grand, we chose to do the trip in a direction that would ensure that most of the trip was uphill! (We had to hit the southern waterways early while there was still some water left in them.)

Our announcement garnered a lot of response (which was our goal, after all). Some very supportive, others incredulous, some incensed. And, when they learned that it was all a big April Fools joke, some were down right ticked off. We thought certain aspects would have tipped people off to the false nature of the post, but evidently not everyone got it. For instance, our sponsors included not only the Saskatchewan Roughriders, but also the Canadian Wheat Board. Now it's a pretty far stretch to imagine the Riders sponsoring a canoe trip, but the CWB? A certain brother of mine was apparently ready to write a letter of protest to the CWB expressing his degree of outrage that the CWB would be directing any form of sponsorship toward a canoe trip. Other friends of the group were ticked off at being asked to financially support our venture. 

We had some good responses in the comments section of the original post, on facebook, and via e-mail. For posterity and your enjoyment, we'll post some of the responses we had here.

CP: Slightly insane - and VERY impressive. I look forward to your pictures!

BH: Are you paddling or poling? I heard that poling is the new thing and paddling is so yesterday.

RB: That is in-freakin-credible! You have to get a sponsor who will keep you linked up the whole time so that you can blog it all!

BS Reply: You might even say it's un-freakin-believable! Happy April 1st!

RB Reply: jack ass!

SS: Will you be doing it on a weekend? I might be interested if I could be back by supper on Sunday.

JY: Wow! Make sure you have passports with you for that first leg – and be careful how you brandish your paddles south of the border! Very impressive trip – but maybe for the 20 year trip you can paddle over the 4 corners of the province.

LD: All I have to say is that is a LOT of girl's weekends for me and K!!

JS: WOW! I’m glad you’re starting out early.  I’m from Carrot River and it’s barebones by summer, and I sense this is going to be hot, dry sucker, also the mossies are the size of ravens along it.  Those northeast creeks are going to be, uh, fun…. I hope you like beaver.
Are you going to do Blue Sky [local CBC Radio] reports?
...Ric isn’t familiar with this first part of the route, by the way.

BS Reply: J., I can't believe Ric isn't familiar with that route. It's a famous route well documented by the Hutterite paddlers at the turn of the century.

CN: I think I paddled Yellow Grass Ditch one spring a long long time ago, back when EVERYTHING in Middle Earth was flat.
Remember to take a hard right at the dead cow.

WD: That plan truly is EPIC ! ...one week per leg? How do you guys manage to schedule this?

DB: Hey Jay, I'll offer you all the moral support in the world, and usually financial is not too hard to come by, but I think I better draw the line at paying for my buddy's holidays...:)

MB: (After the joke was revealed) What’s really annoying about all of this were my immediate plans to sneak away for a part of the summer and join the expedition…
The fact that you spent hours creating a trip that couldn’t exist says a lot about you though.  I’m not sure what, but definitely something.

SS: You guys are a bunch of punks.  Good one.  I must say though, it speaks to our overestimation of your stamina & canoeing ability.  And our ignorance of what is physically possible for a bunch of beer-guzzling goofballs.

IB: Wow, that is some trip. How many beers did it take for you to come up with that route, and how many are you taking with you. I suspect that you are pulling a bit of an April fools joke on us? But if not, maybe I can sign on for the Clearwater River section of your route.

RZ: You had me. I was thinking "Epic" and trying to imagine how much time and effort it would take to do it. I guess that I'm just too willing to believe that some people go on these amazing expeditions. Good one.

Fishing For a Sale

A keen country lad applied for a salesman's job at a city department store. In fact it was the biggest store in the world - you could get anything there. The boss asked him, "Have you ever been a salesman before?" "Yes, I was a salesman in the country" said the lad. The boss liked the cut of him and said, "You can start tomorrow and I'll come and see you when we close up."

The day was long and arduous for the young man, but finally 5 o'clock came around. The boss duly fronted up and asked, "How many sales did you make today?" "One," said the young salesman. "Only one?" blurted the boss, "most of my staff make 20 or 30 sales a day. How much was the sale worth?" "Three hundred thousand dollars," said the young man. "How did you manage that?" asked the flabbergasted boss. "Well," said the salesman "this man came in and I sold him a small fish hook, then a medium hook and finally a really large hook. Then I sold him a small fishing line, a medium one and a huge big one. I asked him where he was going fishing and he said down the coast. I said he would probably need a boat, so I took him down to the boat department and sold him that twenty foot schooner with the twin engines. Then he said his Volkswagen probably wouldn't be able to pull it, so I took him to the car department and sold him the new Deluxe Cruiser."

The boss took two steps back and asked in astonishment, "You sold all that to a guy who came in for a fish hook?" "No," answered the salesman "He came in to buy a box of Tampons for his wife and I said to him, 'Your weekend's shot, you may as well go fishing.'"

NSE 2010 Expedition Plans Revealed

2010 is a big year for Northstar Expeditions. It's our 10th year of tripping together so we want to do it right and we figured this was THE year to go big or go home.

2010 Four Borders Expedition

It's taken a lot of hard work and planning (we just spent the whole weekend preparing and stockpiling jerky) , but we are finally ready to reveal what's in store this year. We are looking at a major expedition. Our goal: to cross all four borders of our home province, Saskatchewan. Yup, that's right we are going to hit the southern, eastern, western and northern borders of our giant rectangular province. We will start in the south and work our north, hitting the eastern and western borders as we go.

View Larger Map

Here is our route plan: We will start early in the season by paddling on Long Creek near Crosby, ND, across the border into Saskatchewan and onto Boundary Dam. From there, it's into the Souris River to Weyburn and into Yellow Grass Ditch (that's right, a ditch with a name, and the best part about it is that it skips all the damn oxbows we've been weaving through for the previous 160km! Oh, how we will grow to love/hate those oxbows), back into the Souris River to Wascana Creek. This we will follow downriver through Regina (right past my uncle's house) and on (right past another uncle's house) to the junction with the Qu'Appelle River at Lumsden to Mountain Creek at Craven to Last Mountain Lake, into Lanigan Creek which we will paddle upstream to Delwood Brook, portage into Wolverine Creek (which flows two directions), to Humboldt Lake and on via the Wolverine to Ranch Lake (locally Ranch Slough). The Wolverine will take 50% of NSE right past the farms where they grew up and we will be stopping in for a couple of meals, equipment repairs, resupply, and a few beer. From Ranch Slough we will continue on to Eagle Lake via a series of ditches, sloughs and gravel road portages. We leave Eagle Lake via Melfort Creek (from which point our prairie traverse will certainly get easier) to the Carrot River. The Carrot River will be our meandering highway for a while as we paddle out of the prairie farmland and enter the forest! To this point, we will have traveled somewhere over 1000km.

Leg 1 - 1000 km of meandering creeks, sloughs and reservoirs, with at least one gravel road portage.

Satellite view of Leg 1.

Leg 2 of our journey has us continuing down the Carrot River (in the forest now and we will be encountering our first real rapids of the trip) past the Sipanok Channel (access to Sask River) and on into Manitoba, where we will enter into the Saskatchewan River at The Pas, MB. From there, we paddle just as the voyageur's did, upriver on the Saskatchewan River back into Saskatchewan and entering Cumberland Lake and the Sturgeon-Weir River system at Cumberland House. The voyageur highway takes us up the Sturgeon-Weir River to Namew Lake, Amisk Lake, past Pawistik Lodge, Mirond Lake, Pelican Lake, and Wood Lake, crossing the famous Frog Portage into the Churchill River system at Trade Lake. From there it's upriver on the Churchill westward across the province all the way to Lac La Loche (end of Leg 2, a distance of some 1200 km).

Leg 2 - Out of the prairie and into the boreal forest and onto the shield.

Satellite view of Leg 2.

From Lac La Loche we will continue on the voyageur highway and cross the infamous Methye Portage into the westward-flowing Clearwater River. After having fun in some of the Clearwater's rapids, we will join the Athabasca River at Fort Mac (Fort McMurray), a good location to re-supply and perhaps earn some trip money by working a few days in the Alberta Tar Sands. The Athabasca River will take us to Fort Chip and Lake Athabasca, and once again, back into Saskatchewan. We will follow the beautiful south shore of Lake Athabasca (maybe I will try to show the others where I caught that 35 pound trout), passing the Athabasca Sand Dunes, and travel upstream on the Fond du Lac River to the Grease River which will take us northeast to the Straight River. The Straight will connect us to Selwyn Lake where we will make cross the border into  the Northwest Territories, several kilometers before we dip back into Saskatchewan, finishing our trip at a hot tub in Selwyn Lake Lodge (Leg 3 total over 950 km). Whew, that's a lot of waterways!

Final leg of our epic voyage.

Of course we will be posting updates as we get closer to launch time and may even update things as we go when the opportunity allows.

NSE would like to thank our sponsors: (And there is always room for more sponsors!)

Runnin' From the CO

Bryan and Rod were out fishing at their special eddy below Robinson Falls when out of the bushes jumped the Conservation Officer! Immediately, Bryan threw his fishing rod down and started running through the woods and hot on his heels came the CO. After about a half mile through the raspberry bushes and underbrush, Bryan stopped and stooped over with his hands on his thighs to catch his breath and the CO finally caught up to him. "Let's see yer fishin' license, boy!" the officer gasped. With that, Bryan pulled out his wallet and gave the CO a valid fishing license. "Well, son" said the CO, "you must be about as dumb as a box of rocks! You don't have to run from me if you have a valid license!" "Yes sir," replied Bryan, "but my friend back there, well, he don't have one... "

Making the wood stove.

A few weeks ago NSE convened in order to build a wood stove for winter camping use. We started this project off back in November or December with a planning session. Rod designed the stove using CAD software, based on a design he had for a fishing shack stove with adaptations based on Dave Hadfield's instructions and other information gleaned from Wintertrekking.com and MyCCR.com. After designing the stove, the components were cut using a CNC controlled plasma cutter. The components were joined by tig welding.

The stove itself is constructed of 22 gauge steel, is 20 inches long, and 11 inches tall by 11 inches wide. It has hole to fit 5" steel stove pipe and a hole to accommodate a pot. There is a false bottom in two pieces so that they can be flipped over inside the stove for transport. The door has a brace on the inside to keep it straight and an adjustable air intake. Four lengths of 5" stove pipe fit inside, along with the cover for the pot opening, though it's a tad tight of a fit. A damper fits into the stove pipe.

Putting the finishing touches in the design before sending the file to the plasma cutter. This photo was taken at about 9 pm.

CNC controlled plasma cutter. This machine is designed to cut steel up to 1" thick and it thinks 22 gauge steel is not worth it's effort. The steel is too thin for it to recognise so we had to trick it into starting. Rod would do that by sticking a metal ruler in under the plasma cutter when it lowered itself onto the steel, then yank the ruler away just half a second before it started to cut.

Parts being cut out by the plasma cutter.

Jay performs while Rod works.

After the plasma cutter had completed it's task, we measure and mark out prior to using the bending brake shown behind Rod. Jay contributes as best he can.

Rod tig welds a joint.

Carefully aligning one of the pieces for the legs in the bending brake.

Putting it together. See the massive steel tanks in the background? That's the sort of thing Rod normally builds!

Test fit. We noted that the legs splay out due to the weight of the stove quite a bit so later added bits of angle iron to stiffen the top of the leg pieces.

Inside view showing the false bottom.

Stove ready to go with the pot set into the hole. This photo was taken at about 3am.

About 30 hours after completing the stove it was set up in the boreal forest of northern Saskatchewan during a trip to Iskwatikan Lake.

Practising with the stove in the back yard.

The steel is all still pretty straight with the warpage being rather minimal.

The stove proved to work rather well. Now all we need to do is find a time when NSE can head out on a trip and actually use it as a group!

Bush Golf

Jay and Rob were playing golf at a foggy par three near Corner Rapids, and could see the shrubs, but not the island. Each hit their ball anyway. When they paddled to the green, they discovered one about three feet from the cup, while the other somehow had gone directly in. They tried to figure out which ball belonged to who, since they were both using Titleist number threes. Unable to decide, they returned to camp and asked Rod for a ruling. After hearing their story and congratulating them both on their superb shots under such adverse conditions Rod asked, "OK, so who was playing the yellow ball?"

Fish Kisses

How do you kiss a pike? ............

... Very Carefully

Willows

An old man rocking on his porch sees a young kid and his fishing pole walking down the dirt road. "Where you goin' with that pole?" he calls. "Gonna git me some fish with this here fishing pole!" answers the kid. Sure enough, as the sun is setting the old man sees the kid going home with a bucket of fish. Next day, old man rocking on his porch sees the kid walking down the dirt road with some duct tape. "Where you goin' with that?" he calls. "Gonna git me some ducks with this here tape!" answers the kid. "You can't git no ducks with tape!" hollers the old man. But sure enough, as the sun is setting the old man sees the kid going home with the tape strung out behind him and ducks stuck all over it! Next day, old man rocking on his porch sees the kid walking down the dirt road with some chicken wire. "Where you going with that?" he calls. "Gonna get me some chickens with this wire!" answers the kid. "You can't get no chickens with wire!" hollers the old man. But sure enough, as the sun is setting the old man sees the kid going home with the wire strung out behind him and chickens stuck all through it! Next day, old man rocking on his porch sees the kid walking down the dirt road with some pussy willows. "Now hold on just a minute" calls the old man, "wait while I get my hat!!"

Snakes & Frogs

A man went fishing one day. He looked over the side of his boat and saw a snake with a frog in its mouth. Feeling sorry for the frog, he reached down, gently took the frog from the snake, and set the frog free. But then he felt sorry for the snake. He looked around the boat, but he had no food. All he had was a bottle of rye. So he opened the bottle and gave the snake a few shots. The snake went off happy, the frog was happy, and the man was happy to have performed such good deeds. He thought everything was great until about ten minutes passed and he heard something knock against the side of the boat. With stunned disbelief, the fisherman looked down and saw the snake was back with two frogs!