Lure of the North

Killarney Krossing Expedition 2012

Four new videos have just been posted – 3 short (1 – 2 min) trailers from our 2012 season, plus 1 longer (13 min) episode detailing the construction of a backyard earth oven.  Find them on the videos page, or check them out directly:

• Ishpatina Ridge 2012 (Trailer);
• Killarney Krossing 2012 (Trailer);
• Learning with Lure (Trailer);
• Making an Earth Oven – Episode 1;

Two more trailer videos have already been completed and will be published next week.  Subscribe to our Youtube channel for all the updates.

Our terribly sloppy old videos page has been completely remodeled and updated with a brand new layout and links to lots of new videos!  Check them out here.

Kie loving life on a Temagami trail!

We’ve just wrapped up a fantastic first season, and are still basking in the warm glow of a beautiful winter very well spent!

Full trip reports and videos will be released slowly over the weeks and/ or months to come.  In the meantime most of the season’s photos have now been uploaded, and can be viewed here.

This season (our first official guiding season) we’ve had the pleasure of running 5 trips, totaling 26 days on trip, with 25 different participants.  Some of the highlights include:

• We had our youngest participant to date: 11 year old Nicole, who pulled her own toboggan for four days, and hiked high up the flanks of Killarney’s highest point: Silver Peak.
• We also had our most mature participant to date: at 68 years of age Louis impressed every group member on our recent 8-day Ishpatina expedition.  Despite waist-deep snow, we all made it to the summit of Ontario, and even enjoyed a little polar bear dip the following day!
• This year we had the honour and pleasure of getting to meet and go on trip with Kevin Callan in beautiful Killarney Provincial Park;
• Along with some of last year’s Ishpatina Ridge participants we traveled all the way across Killarney in a 7 day expedition from the SE corner to the NW corner of the park! This route took in some of the park’s most spectacular terrain, and the 150+ metres (500′) of elevation gain with toboggans in tow, tested us all and brought us closer together as a group and as friends.  This is the first part of a “Triple Crown” offering we intend to offer in the future which will include a 7-day crossing of Killarney PP, a 10+ day crossing of Algonquin PP, and a 14+ day crossing of the Temagami wilderness area!

We’d like to sincerely thank everyone who believed in us for our first season and provided support and/ or encouragement:

• Kevin Callan;
• Tim, Kathy and the whole White Squall crew;
• Viki and Allan from Kukagami Lodge;
• John Langford of Voyageur Quest;
• Brian Ramakko of Ramakko’s Outdoor Adventure Store;
• Tim and Chris of the Canadian Outdoor Equipment Co.;
• Our parents;
• And most importantly: every single person who joined us for a trip this season – Thank You!

A snow- and smile-filled expedition to Ishpatina Ridge!

We’ve just finished up our official first full season of guiding winter trips, and couldn’t have asked for a better way to finish! In the first week of March, we received a great blast of beautiful wintery weather, with cold, clear nights, some beautifully sunny days, lots of wind and piles of snow (20+cm the first night alone!). We even had a temporary 2-day meltdown, which led to lots of drastically changing, constantly interesting conditions! In 8 days we traveled over 60kms across 7 lakes and portages, winding sections of the Montreal River, and the final 3-km bushwhack to the highest point in Ontario! Despite waist-high snow back in the bush, every member of our little group of 6 made it to the top, including first-time winter campers, and 68 years young Louis from Parry Sound!  Congratulations to all participants, and thanks for making our final trip of the season so memorable!

Photos coming soon!

Trail toboggan and anorak in action in Temagami

We’ve been making them for a couple of years now, and we’re happy to finally have these products officially for sale here on the site: our 8 – 12′ long HPDE trail toboggans, our custom leather tumps, and our windprood anoraks!

Check out the store for more info.

Heading Back Home on the Wind-Blown Lakes

Last week we had the pleasure of heading out on trip in Killarney Park with Ontario’s well-loved guidebook author Kevin Callan and his hilarious friend Andy Baxter.  We had a beautiful trip, an amazing group including our youngest participant to date (11 year old Nicole), a challenging hike up the flanks of Silver Peak, and most prominently a unique camp-life experience including snowshoe baseball, tropical vacation advertisements, a snack-stuffing competition and much more!

View the photo album here, and stay tuned for video releases on Kevin Callan’s Youtube channel sometime this week. Kevin completed a CBC interview (by sat. phone) while on trip.  Listen to it here.

En Route to Silver Peak ! (Mid January 2012)

We are off to Killarney Provincial Park this coming weekend for a 4-day hike to Silver Peak with Kevin Callan and a host of others (including our youngest participant to date!).  We were in this area a couple of weeks ago and had beautiful conditions – easy travel on the windblown lakes, but lots of snow in the bush.  We’re looking forward to another wonderful trip this weekend, and 3 more in February and March.

View all the photos from last month’s Silver Peak trip  here.

A great time to be alive!

The winter tripping season kicks off for us in just a few days with some private outings and a nice family trip planned in January. The trips are filling up well and it looks like we will be quite busy from here right through until mid-March.

As a small company, Kielyn and I fill all company roles ourselves: we are the guides, sweatshop labourers, office managers and secretaries all rolled into one (or two). We think that’s pretty great for our guests because you get the opportunity to talk directly to your guides when you phone/ write about a trip. The downside is that while we are out on trip, there’s nobody to look after the office. We get home from a typical trip and our voice mailbox is full (we wish!), if we had a fax machine it would likely be out of paper, and even our 3.8gigs of Gmail space is practically full (of spam). But rest assured, even if it takes a little bit longer we will eventually get back to you. You might want to check the calendar on the right side of the page as well… could be we’re out on trip as you read this.

Our first bit of media. Whoohoo!

The Sudbury Star published an article about Lure of the North over the holidays.  Click the image to the left for a full-size image, or read the entire article on the Star site here.