They’re out there – watching!

We’ve just made it that much easier, with our new “In the News” section! Enjoy :)

There’s is certainly lots of room for improvement!

Kielyn and I have 1001 things we’d like to do to improve Lure of the North this coming off-season.  Having a to-do list as long as our arms is stressful, but it is also one of the things that makes this venture so constantly exciting.  We control our destiny and we get out what we put in – and that’s how we want life to be!

Here’s just a few of the things we want to work on this off-season:

• No new products!
  Well not quite, but after releasing lots of new products last year, now we really want to focus on refining those further, and try to keep them in stock this year!
• Knowledge is power;
  So to that end, we plan to provide more technical information about our products online.  Ever wanted to know that our ice chisels are made of 12.5mm thick AR400 plate, have a blade width of 5.3mm and weigh 700g?  Now you do.
• Revamped Instructional Booklets
  People have loved our DIY kits, and we love knowing that they’re getting a great product AND the skills and confidence acquired with making it themselves.  So we want to continue to refine and improve our instructional booklets throughout the summer!
• Improved Web Software
  In particular, we plan to improve our shipping calculator to give accurate quotes the first time.  To all those who have gotten a quote of $40 to ship a pair of socks to the US, we’re on it!
• Instructional Videos
  We will continue to release our fun/ motivational trip videos, but in addition we plan to release more instructional videos with details about using/ selecting appropriate gear, techniques, etc.  Bonus for us: these are easier to edit than trip videos!
• And of course: build a home and workspace in the woods (more on that later though)!

Snowwalkers now on DVD!

We’re excited to announce that our 50-minute documentary “Snowwalkers” is now available on DVD!  But we’re perhaps even more excited to announce that the book that inspired our adventure “Snow Walker’s Companion” is finally back in print, and available right here in our store.  Rejoice!

You can find both products under the new “Literature” section of our store.

An ice cave on Lake Superior. Photo courtesy Conor Mihell.

April is here, and winter is officially over, but we’re still basking in the warm glow of a season full of fond memories and great travel companions!  We’d like to thank everyone who made this, our third trip season, such a wonderful and memorable experience!

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 we had the pleasure of being out on 5 group trips, and 2 personal trips totaling 44 days on trip and over 300km traveled!  Some of the highlights include:

• We had our most mature participant to date: at 78 years of age Gerard impressed every group member on our 9-day Eco-Explorers Expedition in the Wolf Lake area!
• This year we had the honour and pleasure of getting to meet Dave and Deb from The Planet D and travel a section of the historic Missinaibi River!
• Traveling in our new backyard!  Just kilometres from our new home, we summited Mt. Ararat on our “Celebrating Spring” trip.
• An amazing journey on a seldom-frozen section of the largest lake in the world: Lake Superior!
• The amazing winter weather we had for (nearly) the entire winter.  With the exception of one mid-January thaw, we had wonderful consistent winter weather all season!

We’d like to sincerely thank everyone who provided support and/ or encouragement:

• Ontario Tourism;
• The Planet D;
• Hayfire Media;
• And most importantly: every single person who joined us for a trip this season – Thank You!

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!