Rejoice, the trips have arrived!
Our winter 2012 trip schedule is now available online! Â Head to the “Guided Trips” page for all the details.
Two new videos have been added to the site!
Our 40-day trek from the winter of 2010 and our first guided offering to the top of Ontario: Ishpatina Ridge 2011. Â Head to the media page to find them or view them directly on Vimeo:
Special thanks to Dave Hartman of Hayfire Media for his work on these videos!Â
Winter mittens ready for felting!
Our fall 2011 workshop schedule is now complete and online. Â These workshops are available at this time of year only (many run just once annually), so don’t miss out!
Jump to the workshops page for full details.
After our planned spring/ summer hiatus to work on other ‘projects’ (including marriage!), we are more excited than ever to get lured back into cold-weather activities!  After a great first season of operation, we are thrilled to have even more to offer this year.
Traditionally, the freeze-up period of late fall was a time when travel in the bush was difficult and impractical. Â So people adapted and used that time to prepare for the coming winter by making camp, laying up the canoe and building snowshoes, moccasins, toboggans and other materials required for winter travel. Â Once freeze-up was complete, travelling would recommence in earnest. Â That makes a lot of sense to us, so we plan to do the same this year. Â That means workshops will primarily be offered this fall, while the winter season will be dedicated to offering guided trips and helping people get out there to use all that new gear! Â So if you’ve been thinking about making yourself a new pair of moccasins to use this winter, don’t wait until January, contact us today for a fall workshop.
Our initial schedule will be posted in the next couple of weeks, with more events added as the season progresses. Â As always, we are open to coming to you for a private workshop if your numbers warrant. Â See our workshop page here for more info, and contact us if this is something you are interested in this year.
An Explorer’s Club expedition before the club was even born! Ishpatina 2011 was Lure’s very first guided expedition. These group members certainly had to demonstrate the “explorer’s mentality” to follow a couple of untested twenty-somethings into the winter wilderness for eight days!
With deep snow, lots of slush, and a major mid-trip meltdown, we certainly faced our share of challenges en route to the top of Ontario!
Members (alphabetical): Dave Marrone, Kielyn Marrone, Collin Pollard, Roger Pollard, Jouko Rantala, Stephen Ritchie.
Our “Top of Ontario” tour has become a classic offering that is now on our schedule most years. Check out our Ishpatina Ridge page to check dates or register.
Finally, check our first two trip videos from this expedition:
While you are welcome to browse about this website to see what we have been up to lately, our official wedding website can be found by following the link below:
A view of Lake Ramsey from the "flountain".
Winter is tenaciously trying to hold on here in Sudbury, with good ice still on many lakes, and most mornings still dawning crisp and clear. Inevitably, of course, spring will come though. Â We are sad to see the end of another great winter, but welcome the changing season with open arms. Â We are watching the temperature and Sudbury cliffs closely, and as soon as they are dry and warm enough, the climbing shoes will be out to replace the snowshoes!
We will be kicking back into high gear in the fall of 2011 with many winter workshop offerings (moccasins, mittens, snowshoe making) designed to prepare people for the coming winter, and we are excited to be planning a full complement of winter expeditions starting after Christmas. Â Until then, enjoy the spring and summer as we will be doing, and we’ll see you next fall!
An unique order out of New York State has given us the fun opportunity to experiment with a ‘mini-moc’ design, and has reminded us that we love custom orders! Â Our customer sent us a box of beautifully beaded indoor moccasins, and tasked us to transform them into outdoor winter moccasins by adding a felted wool liner, rubber sole, canvas upper, and beaver fur trim. Â Kielyn and I had a lot of fun crafting and Tammy now has 5 pairs of beautiful winter moccasins!
If you have any ideas of custom winter clothing you would like crafted, or modifications you would have to your existing items, we’d love to hear from you.
Thaw Conditions on Smoothwater Lake.
We’ve just returned from an 8-day trip to the summit of Ontario along with 4 other participants. The trip was an incredible adventure, characterized by great camaraderie and some wild swings in the weather. Read more or view all the photos through our Past Trips page.
All news, no fluff! We have only ever sent out 4 - 6 newsletters a year, and always when we have a major bit of news we want to share. You know, like one of us is going to be on a fancy TV show, or we're releasing our upcoming trip or workshop schedule. Plus we also offer the occasional newsletter-only special deal!
