Conor hauls up a steep pitch of ice on the Lake Superior Coast!

We’re back from an awe-inspiring adventure along the coast of the largest lake in the world (by surface area anyways!).  The winter of 2014 has been a near-record setting year for ice-formation on the great lakes.  The lakes topped out at approximately 92% ice coverage, which is just 2% shy of the modern record. We couldn’t resist this opportunity to head out and hike an amazing section of coastline that may not form so solidly again for decades!   Check out the route here, or view all of our photos here.  Special thanks to our traveling companion Conor Mihell for adding his passion and local knowledge to make a great trip even better!

We set out for a quality post-season vacation!

Our last trip of the season just wrapped up yesterday – three amazing spring days right in our breathtaking backyard with a great group of folks! You can find the photos here.

Our guiding season has now wrapped up, and we’re getting very excited to move to our new property, but first we’ve been lured out to a post-season snow walking expedition on the shores of the greatest fresh-water lake in the world! We’ll be joined by Conor Mihell, author of “The Greatest Lake“, who should prove to be an amazing asset and resource for our first time to the big waters!

We’re off to explore the wonderful Lacloche hills this weekend.  We’re back on Sunday, but away again all next week for our final adventure of the season – this time to the frozen shores of Lake Superior!

Follow us at: facebook.com/lureofthenorth

“Snowwalkers” is a 50-minute documentary about a 10-day trip down (a section of) the Missinaibi River undertaken in February, 2013.

We were extremely grateful to have legendary Maine guide, and co-author of “A Snow Walker’s Companion”, Garrett Conover, join us for this trip.

Funding for the making of the documentary was generously provided by various departments from Laurentian University and the Laurentian University Alumni Association.

Editing completed by Bill Sanders of Laurentian University.
Videography work was completed by David Hartman of Hayfire Media.

Sit down, grab the popcorn, and enjoy – we sure did!

Dave under the towering Red Pines of Wolf Lake

We’ve been slow keeping the website up to date with all the activity around here, so this post’s a double header!

• In mid-February we enjoyed an amazing 9-day “Eco Explorers” adventure with Dr. Gerard Courtin in the Wolf Lake region north of Sudbury.  You can check out all the photos here.
• And just this past weekend, we returned to beautiful Killarney Provincial Park, for a 3-day tour of frozen waterfalls, narrow creeks and (unfortunately!) smelly swamps! Those photos are right here.

We had the pleasure last month of traveling 100km down the Missinaibi River with adventure travel couple Dave and Deb of the Planet D.  This 5 minute video does a great job of capturing that adventure.  Enjoy!

A majestic frozen spruce.

We’re out again – this time to the SW corner of the grand Temagami wilderness.  We have nine days to travel, learn and explore on this year’s special “Eco Explorer” expedition.  This is a new trip for us: we’ll be joined by winter ecologist Gerard Courtin, and will be spending half our days at a slower pace, taking the time to learn more about the environment around us.  What a great opportunity for us all to share with Gerard!

Using satellite technology you can follow our journey at: facebook.com/lureofthenorth

[Ps. We apologize that no one will be home to answer phone/ emails, etc]

The crew heads across Missinaibi Lake.

What an amazing journey we’ve just had again this year on the Missinaibi River!  Our 100km trip from CP to CN rails took us over small lakes, creeks, ponds, rivers, around (and even over!) rapids, and across the expansive Missinaibi Lake.  We faced storms, near-constant winds, -30 temps, and some serious slush, but we had a heck of a lot of fun doing it!

Check out all the trip photos here.

For now we’ll be in the office catching up this week, but we’re off again this Saturday for our 9-day “Eco Explorer” adventure!

A beautiful sunrise on the Missinaibi River!

We embark tomorrow for a 13-day journey down a 100km section of the Missinaibi River! Joining us for this amazing adventure are Dave and Deb of The Planet D, with support from Ontario Tourism!

Using satellite technology you can follow our journey at: facebook.com/lureofthenorth

[Ps. We apologize that no one will be home to answer phone/ emails, etc]

Kielyn slices cured Lonza from Ristorante Verdicchio

Fine Italian cuisine may not be the first thing you associate with Lure of the North.  But when we visited Ristorante Verdicchio here in Sudbury last month, we quickly realized we shared a lot in common with owner Mark Gregorini.  He and the staff are passionate about providing an exceptional customer experience which is infused with culture and building a strong local community.  Mark talked of the social bonds we form over a great meal, and we’re certainly no strangers to that here at Lure!  After a long, hard day on the trail, nothing is finer than sharing a good meal and a nice glass of wine with friends around the wood stove.  Thanks to Verdicchio’s those meals just got a whole lot finer with the addition of fine Lonza and Italian Olive Oil!
(PS: Mark shares the same DIY philosophy as Lure: this Lonza and other similar cured meats are produced in-house, what a treat!)