Route Planning Pt.2 + Parent Picnic!

We finished our route!

Our girls showed up to basecamp in the morning ready to go! We had a little chat about what we think went well and what they could do differently. They also made a list of places that they’d like to see in our route. They got to work, starting a little more south than they had decided the day before. On our new route, we will be starting with Brightsand River going into the Allanwater River and resupplying on Wabakimi Lake. But don’t worry, they decided we will have a half layover on Whitewater Lake so they have time to check out the historic cabin and see Best Island. We will end on Caribou Lake. They also decided to do a big portage! And since this portage doesn’t have a name, the girls decided to name it Meatball portage. We will be the first Voyaguers to ever have done Meatball Portage! SUPER HYPE

Later that night we had our Parent Picnic! We invited all of our girls and their families to join us for a potluck at basecamp. We ate, looked at our freshly finished route, flipped canoes, tried on packs, and much more. It was really fun being able to meet and talk to the parents of our girls and answer all of their questions, and the food was great! It was a great day altogether!

Gear Shake Down + Route Planning

Wow, it’s getting close! As the days pass by, we get closer and closer to leaving for Canada!

We started our meeting with gear shake down, which is where we have the girls bring all of the things that they will be packing and we go through them one by one. We do this so we know that everyone is bringing the everything they need and the right things. We also did it early enough that we could make notes of what they still need to have, so they have time to get those items. We stopped and had a lunch of Chipotle, then we went right into route planning! We started by having the girls look for some cool spots in the park that they might want to hit on their route. They made the decision to resupply and have our layover on Whitewater Lake where they is a historic cabin on Best Island. When they routed, we had Lauren (our route manager) measuring distances of our days with a string labeled with 10km, 15km, and 20km. At the end of our route, they were not sure how they felt about it and decided we could come back the next day with a fresh view of the route and do a second draft!

Epic Day

coming into the meeting today we had absolutely no idea what Ava had planned for us. We hoped that we would get to just sit on the couch and chat but we only got to do that for like 30 minutes at the end. We started by putting up our tents in the scorching heat. We couldn’t find our third tent but we decided we did not want to cuddle up in 2 tents for 28 days. We then came inside and bagged our granola and scalloped potatoes. After that we noticed that the boys did not clean up the living room and so their maps were all over the floor (Thanks boys). It’s okay though because we ended getting to look at their maps and discuss a bit of what we want our trip to look like, getting excited for next week when we get to finally plan our route! Ava had a fun Kahoot for us to play and some of us were much better than others when it came to naming animals we may see in Canada. After our kahoot we had some questions to ask Ava and we then went through old crews journals and talked for a while about everything. We can’t wait for next week when we get to route plan and we are all getting very excited to get out on trail!

-Aubrey

Rescues & Games

We got to work right away and put our canoes in the water. 🛶 We started by Lauren and Abi tipping there canoes and then we learned how to do a t-rescue. After that we started learning how to brace and how to do the j-lean game. The water was very nice and weedy. Liv threw her paddle in the water without warning and jumped in. It was awesome. Anna and Liv raced but soon gave up. We played the teeter totter game. It went downhill and it will not be happening again. 😡 Overall, we got some bruises, but it was a fun day!

-Anna

Skills Meeting

Today our meeting was skill based. We started off with a compass scavenger hunt. We had the girls follow our clues which gave them bearings and how many paces they needed walk. We had treats for them at the end of the scavenger hunt! The next thing we did was try to bead the boots we are bringing, but unfortunately, the beads did not fit the laces :( We then taught the girls how to use stoves. The the fire ban in Canada right now it is important to learn how to use the stoves, since we will use these mostly on trail. We did a repack of our kettle pack, and attempted to put together our last packs. After we were done at basecamp, we went to Anna’s house where her mom had graciously brought us Chick-Fil-A for lunch (which Vivian was super excited for). We put some spaghetti sauce in the dehydrator and ended our meeting!

Crew Olympics 🥇/ Sewing Day 🧵🪡

Today was a doozy! We started off by carpooling from Gracelyn’s house in Aubrey’s Dad’s Jeep. Our outfit theme was white lies, though we had a little trouble when we forgot Gracelyn’s shirt. Don’t worry, Abi’s Dad picked it up for us (thanks)!! When we arrived at base camp, we got a debriefing on how to start a fire because we haven’t learned yet. We picked out flag, the Ontario flag, and Crew Olympics started! Our first task was packing kettle bags. We did great, our bag stood up and we got a time of 18:13. We placed third out of all the crews. Next, we portaged. We got a great time of 12:01, third overall and the fastest girl team! Then we set up a tarp. We were pretty efficient though we got a little behind when we got too chatty while coiling our p-cord 🙈. We then went to bag throwing, which was our first time even hearing about it. We did pretty well, especially with a shot-put and discuss thrower on our team (thanks Lauren 😜)! We then moved to paddling. The wind was VERY strong, but we’re stronger 💪! We placed third in paddling and we were the fastest out of the girls teams. Lastly, we had to start a fire. This was our first time, and it took a lot of matches, but we got it going. Unfortunately, we got cut short as Crew Olympics was a little behind and finished before we could. Overall, we did awesome at Crew Olympics and had so much fun! What a great team! 🥳

Next, we went to Gracelyn’s house to commence sewing day! We had a super tasty lunch and some treats. We sewed our paddle bags and our ditty bags, which all turned out great! We had some help from family and friends and it was greatly appreciated. With our scraps, some of the girls made pillows and blankets. How cute!! Even though the day was long, it was so much fun! 🤗

Food Packing Day

We started off the day by driving to Cathedral High School and organizing the food onto the tables. We rolled up in the best biker outfits, even the people who commented on the facebook page said that we were the best! Then we talked about our plan of action, we had to have Abi checking off bags because she is our food manager. Then the rest of us were weighing food, grabbing food, and tying bags. We learned how to tie the bags, you have to double bag them, suck the air out, tie a string around it, put a label in, and tie the outside bag. We continued doing that until Jack said it was lunch time, our crew ran to chipotle and so did a lot of other crews. When we got back Gracelyn gave us cookies that she made for us, they were so good. Then we got back to work and some girls for the far north crew came and helped us finish up, once we were done we helped out the Kleege crew. Lastly we packed up our food and brought it to Gracelyn’s car.

-Lauren

Baking Day!!!

On Tuesday the Schabinski crew had our baking day. This is the day that we all the homemade food that we bring on trail. This includes, Hudson Bay Bread (which is similar to a granola bar), ground beef to dehydrate, and our homemade hot chocolate powder. We hosted it at Cathedral in their culinary room so we had a lot of space to cooking a lot all at once. We split up into stations to start and had some of the girls doing Bay Bread, some mixing the hot chocolate powder in a large tub, and some got to cook up some ground beef. The girls got pretty creative with their Bay Bread flavors, making a s’mores flavor, one with fruity pebbles, and kitchen sink (rolos, potato chips, and pretzels). We had a little lunch break picnic, courtesy of Viv’s mom, and got right back to work, switching stations. After we were done, we went to Anna’s house to check on the dehydrator and bag all of the hot chocolate powder (accidentally inhaling it in the process). It was a long day but we got a lot done!

MEAT 🥩

Meat day accomplished. It was big day and we are so proud of our girls for being well on time. Jerky Day is a very important day for the life of a voyageur and we completed it in record time! With all of us crews packed into one garage we were sweaty, but were super efficient. Here’s Aubrey’s run down…

Today we had beef jerky day! We met at basecamp extra early so we wouldn’t have to do pushups!!! We then grabbed the dehydrator and packed it up in the car. We headed out to go cut our meat and obviously matching we looked the best!! We started cutting and cut lots and lots or beef! We got yelled at quite a bit because our fat had too much meat still on it, but don’t worry, we fixed it! We got asked out on a crew date by the Kleege crew by them dedicating the honker of meat to us and are plotting what we are gonna do to them. We then went to Anna’s house to set up the dehydrator and tomorrow we get to start the dehydrating process. We had yummy snacks and planned what to bring tomorrow for baking day and we also hung out with cupcake and Gracelyn got attacked🐱

-Aubrey

Voyager Skills, Swimming and Success

Our meeting yesterday was super productive and got a bunch of skills checked off of our list.

We started the meeting off with practicing our knot tying, then we had a friendly knot competition. Olivia, Aubrey and Anna took the win. Then we put together a kettle pack and set up tarps. We also practiced packing the kettle pack on our own! We went on a crew paddle and saw a majestic train go over the bridge. And we also saw the a boys crew flip their canoes on flat water. We went over some new paddling techniques. Gracelyn taught us to jump off of the deck pad and how to get back on. then swim was very fun because in was TOASTY out.

Knots, Packs, and Portages Oh My

Don’t worry, we’re back with another blog post (only a little late).

This past Monday we had a meeting with all of the girls. The main focus for this meeting was to show the girls how to portage so that when Gracelyn and I were gone for guide training they could go by themselves to practice. We started the meeting though with a quick lesson on knots. We showed them 3 different knots that we will be using on trail, the bowline, square knot, and double half hitch, as well as teaching them how to coil the cords so they would stay together in our packs. Then we moved into the portaging, which they absolutely crushed (naturally). We had some left over time so we put together some of the packs that we are using on trail to get a bit of a head start.

On Tuesday, Gracelyn and I set of on our guide training adventure which consisted of med training, mock trail, and whitewater training. The girls, true to their word, came out to portage while we were away. We are so proud of them! We’ve got a lot coming up so stay tuned!

Menu Pt.2 + Some Canoe Action

Today, despite the dreary weather, our girls were prepared to get started on our canoe flipping skills and finish our menu plan from our past meeting. They absolutely crushed flipping those soaking wet canoes and were efficient with the rest of the menu planning! Each participant gets a job that they lead for our prep, and today we assigned each girl a role. We are super excited to get to paddling this weekend, let’s hear from what the girls thought of our meeting…

3rd meeting ever and we’re already flipping canoes!!🛶It was difficult at the start but we figured it out. We finished our menu… more efficient this time🙈. We got some crew snacks, chocolate covered pretzels and fruit snacks, yum!🍽️ We got our pre-trail jobs, we’re so excited! We planned all of our first paddle sessions, they will be done by this weekend! Lots of laughs and new information, much more to come. 

Lauren and Olivia

Second Meeting!!

Another great meeting tonight! We loved having the full crew together working on various things! Here’s what all the girls put together to explain what we did:

First meeting at base camp! 

Today we started off being challenged with putting the maps of our possible routes together. It definitely showed our problem solving skills! We went through route goals, crew goals, trail expectations, and our favorite: SNACKS!😋 We then used the “sweep” to clean up around the base camp. We planned our menu 🍽️ but we didn't get very far… We’re really thinking hard about it. Afterwards, we had our crew Christmas and got all of our goods from the order form. We discussed when our next meeting will be to finish the menu and learn how to flip canoes! We had a lot of laughs and can’t wait for the next get together!🤗

First Meeting!!

This past Friday we had our very first crew meeting! Everyone met at Gracelyn’s house for a get to know you bonfire. The first thing we did was sand our paddles as a group and chat. We sand down one side of our paddles so that, when we paint them, the paint doesn’t peel off. While sanding, we talked about what our summer will look like meetings wise and some of the girls’ goals for the trip, looks like there might be a night paddle and some fishing on the agenda. After we had successfully sanded our paddles, the guides set up the bonfire while the girls were talking with each other and doing the worm (we don’t know how that got started). We finished our beautiful evening with s’mores and talked about when our next meeting will be and what it will be about, something about menus perhaps... Stay tuned!

-Ava and Gracelyn

Hello!

Hello, I’m Ava! I am finishing up my second year at Saint Ben’s studying Elementary Education with a Hispanic Studies minor. I’m from Sauk Rapids and graduated from the Sauk Rapids High School in 2023. Outside of school I like to go on walks, sing, hang out with friends, work with littles at a daycare, and of course, go canoeing on the lake. I’m super excited for this summer, and can’t wait to get started!

Hi all, I’m Gracelyn! I’m currently studying Civil Engineering with a Spanish minor at University of Minnesota-Duluth. When I’m not working or studying I love to read, mountain bike, throw some frisbee, talk about Jesus and drink some coffee :) I’m crazy excited to get to know this group of girls and guide them this summer with Ava! Please feel free to reach out with any questions/concerns you might have for us!!

Welcome!

Welcome to our crew’s blog!

As summer and the Les Voyageurs season begins to pick up, you can receive updates on our crews progress through photos and the blog on our page. Check back soon to get an inside look at the different skills, knowledge, and steps we are taking as we prepare for our expedition of a lifetime this summer.

Please feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns!