Town & Country Motel Pembroke

A mere 400 or so miles later I pass into very familiar territory, the Ottawa Valley. Rolling farm fields, barn smells and small towns after you bypass Ottawa (which has a charming hostel - the old Ottawa Jail right in the downtown).<br>There's a fiddle festival going on over the Labor Day weekend. It's become a phenom now after several years. The riverside park fills with rvs and bodies. Nice location.

... around it. Kids were drawing on the paper and shining a black light on it. It was pretty awesome. <br><br>Basically we just sat around and talked about hippies, and learned about the Killaloe lifestyle. Which usually involves communal living and apparently playing a lot of Scrabble. The pot luck involved people randomly just unwrapping the stuff they brought whenever they wanted, and then people ate it at random times. I don't know if this is a result of consciously ...

... was all worth while for the camaraderie, the views and the massive rapids. It is also satisfying to say I've done it and sad that I may be one of the last - the Rupert has been given the death sentence and in a few years it will be dammed to make hydroelectric power for Canada. Unfortunately, the attempts to save the river have failed and the amazing rapids and epic views will be lost forever, not to mention the way of life of the Cree people who live and paddle ...

The last two days have been spent rafting on the main channel of the Ottawa River. We learnt the basic guide strokes and techniques, including several flip drills and lots of ferrying and breaking into and out of eddies. It's very hard work - much harder than it looks - and I'm aching a lot now. After learning the basic strokes we paddled down to the main ...

Last night we had a search and rescue scenario. We picked a leader who picked five team leaders to manage smaller search teams. I was a team leader of a group of five. We were taken by bus to the Chutes Coulonge, which was the search area where an unknown number of people had gone missing. Just to set the scene a little, this is an area where there are a number of large waterfalls flowing through a ravine. There is a trail around the edge ...

I have made a rolling contract with Karine C. This means that whenever I want to practice my roll she has to go out on the river and help me but whenever she decides I should go out and practice I have to go. If we have time we are going to practice tomorrow afternoon after class. I'm not sure how much time there will be though, as we are doing a night search and rescue tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to that.

... and finding out who fits in what. I'm using a Jackson Star, which is the smallest in the range. We all got out onto the water and paddled around a bit to get used to the boats and then started practicing rolls straight away. The idea is that once we can roll we will be comfortable enough to practice everything else. Although I didn't roll today I feel that I have made a lot of progress and should hopefully get it within the next few days if I practice enough.

The WFR course started today. A whole day of CPR - oh no! It's like work, but on the decking in the sunshine. It's supposed to be Christmas today (when we get our kayaks and gear) but I've just been told that Christmas has been postponed until tomorrow. :( I was persuaded by Karine (she is very persuasive - she may even have me speaking French before too ...

... wave. The boat was pushed up on the left and I was thrown clear across to the other side along with my fellow left side paddlers. I thought we were going, but somehow we kept on and I was able to struggle up to the other side and keep paddling. The raft righted and we carried on into the eddy. Hurrah! In the evening someone suggested finding the beer store so off we went in someone's car. After we came back we built a huge ...

We are in Esprit now, which is actually in Davidson, Quebec but this map doesn't seem to know where that is so I have chosen Pembroke as the next nearest location on the TravelPod map. However, I have found the googlemap for this area, which can be found here: http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?f=q&amp;h l=en&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;cd=1&amp;geocode=0 ,45 ...