An annual canoe journey for teenagers organized by the Rotary Membership of Peterborough Kawartha has been featured in Rotary’s nationwide journal.

A chunk concerning the membership’s Journey in Understanding program was printed within the January 2021 version of the Rotary Canada journal.

The annual Journey in Understanding canoe journey was established by Don Watkins of the Rotary Membership of Peterborough Kawartha in 2014.

This system brings collectively 20 Indigenous and non-Indigenous teenagers aged 16 to 18 for a 100-kilometre canoe journey alongside the Trent-Severn Waterway.

The six-day journey begins at Beavermead Park in Peterborough and ends at Curve Lake First Nation, guided by Glen Caradus.

Caradus, together with three different leaders, educate college students concerning the fundamentals of paddling and assist them navigate the 125-year-old Peterborough Elevate Lock on their approach to Curve Lake First Nation in 26-foot voyageur canoes.

A number of pit stops are made alongside the way in which. “A water educating with a data keeper within the Trent College teepee, sleeping within the teepee and practising abilities corresponding to archery, atlatl and axe throwing at Camp Kawartha, and listening to an elder share the significance of the sacred Petroglyphs,” based on the membership.

Watkins attended two occasions in Peterborough that led to the thought of a six-day canoe journey, based on the article in Rotary Canada.

“The primary was a lecture by the Canadian writer Joseph Boyden, who advised the story of a Cree man who walked for 31 days along with his son and several other different First Nations individuals to the inaugural Reality and Reconciliation Nationwide Occasion, held in Winnipeg in 2010. Alongside the way in which they talked, shared tales and discovered from each other,” the article states.

The second occasion was a presentation by James Raffan of the Canadian Canoe Museum.

“There was an aha second once I realized we may encourage younger First Nations and non-native youth to share a canoe journey on the Trent-Severn Waterway that flows in and round Peterborough,” Watkins stated. “A canoe journey would put these younger individuals in contact with the water, the air, the vegetation, the animals, and, most significantly, with one another.”

A brief documentary from this system’s 2019 journey is posted at bit.ly/3oeaXOm.

To learn the publication in Rotary Canada, go to bit.ly/3pN4r1i.

Marissa Lentz is a employees reporter on the Examiner, based mostly in Peterborough. Her reporting is funded by the Canadian authorities by means of its Native Journalism Initiative. Attain her by way of e-mail: mlentz@peterboroughdaily.com