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Sunday June 12th is National Rivers Day and Ottawa Riverkeeper will be celebrating with a guided paddle on the Ottawa River.
Join with Max Finkelstein, renowned canoe author, heritage river conoisseur and voyageur-in-training for a day of fun and adventure! Bring your family and paddle the legendary Ottawa River from Victoria Island to Petrie Island a distance of approximately 15-20 km. Bring your PFDs, boat and lunch to Victoria Island for a 10:00 a.m. departure. The paddle will take approximately 3 hours.
A limited size shuttle will be available, it would be preferred if participants could set up their own. For more information contact Delphine, Director of Outreach at 720-9456.
Background
There is no set itinerary other than we’ll be leaving Victoria Island at 10 a.m. and stopping at several interesting sites along the way, one of which will be to savour Max’s famous bannock lunch – better bring your own food and drink as well.
About the route
This isn’t a well known paddling route hence the challenge of learning more about it for use in Riverkeeper’s Recreation river map project. A member of the Friends of Petrie Island described things this way:
“I think it is about 20 km with a current of about 4-5 km/hour. You will pass both Kettle and Upper and Lower Duck islands as well as the Sewage Treatment plant. The islands are glacial sand similar to Petrie Island.
At Petrie we have a shaded picnic area with 40 tables, portable toilets, a small nature information centre, three beaches, nature trails, one of which has the river on one side and inland ponds on the other. Our Wildflower walk event will be on then and many of the flowers will be labeled in English, Latin and French.
For those who want to pick up their canoe/kayak it’s about 100’ from the parking lot and there is a $2.00 charge for parking on weekends and the lots may be full depending on the weather, but you don’t have to pay just to drive in.”
Another Friend of Petrie Island described it this way: ”... It’s a nice trip, almost 18 kilometers one way, OK for most recreational paddlers. My wife and I would gladly do it in our sea kayaks any day. Preferably a shuttle trip – returning against the current is possible in one day, but some participants might not wish to do so. Hugging the Ontario shore makes for a faster trip. A stop at Upper Duck Island might be an idea. That is also just about the only landing possible between Victoria and Petrie.
Other than that, I might suggest that the Quebec side is more interesting (and in the wind shade of the prevailing westerlies) from the top of Kettle Island to the widening of the Ottawa below Green’s Creek. As you probably know, there is no convenient landing (rock banks) from MacDonald-Cartier bridge almost to Petrie Island.
A tour of the Petrie Islands themselves is a must. Depending on date, I might be available to help out here, as those waters are my back yard, and I know where the wildlife is. Note that if there is a brisk east wind, anything over 15 knots, things get wild in the wider reaches (near Blair rd. and between Petrie and Angers). That determines choice of route.”
Petrie Island
A guided tour of Petrie Island will be available for all interested.
About Max
Max is a paddler, author, conservationist, and raconteur who works as the Communications Officer for the Canadian Heritage Rivers System – Canada’s national program for river conservation. He has paddled over 22,000 km in North America, Africa and Australia. In 2002, his book, Canoeing a Continent – On the Trail of Alexander Mackenzie described his experiences re-tracing the historic first crossing of North America by Alexander Mackenzie. His most recent undertaking was, with his friend and paddling partner, Jim Stone, to research the life of geologist, map-maker and explorer A.P. Low. As part of their research on this extraordinary, but unsung, Canadian, Max and Jim paddled over 1,000 km re-tracing A.P. Low’s routes in northern Quebec. Their book, Paddling the Boreal Forest: Rediscovering A.P. Low, was released in 2004. Max and his wife, Connnie Downes, live in Ottawa, where they are introducing their son, Isaac Thelon, to a life of traveling on and learning about rivers.