Family Canoe Trips: Introducing Kids to Wilderness Canoeing
Portaging, photo courtesy Dave Seaton
Northern Minnesota Gunflint Trail outfitters are partnering to take the mystery out of introducing kids to canoeing in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Their growing program, Becoming a Boundary Waters Family, educates parents on how to get started today—instead of waiting until the kids get “just a little bit older.”
The outfitters along the Gunflint Trail in northern Minnesota have a new message they want you to hear: you don’t need to wait to introduce your kids to the magic of canoeing and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. They know there’s nothing quite like watching a young child fall in love with the woods—they have seen it for themselves, introducing their own kids to the wilderness—and they are setting out to share the wisdom they gained through a new program. A collaborative effort, Becoming a Boundary Waters Family has been designed to take the mystery out of wilderness canoeing with kids. Dave Seaton of Hungry Jack Canoe Outfitters recently spoke at the Midwest Mountaineering Outdoor Adventure Expo in Minneapolis.
“If you’re waiting until your kids are twelve or thirteen and they can carry their load, they will not be interested.”
“If I had a dollar for every time someone said ‘I’m waiting till the kids get older….’ If you’re waiting until your kids are twelve or thirteen and they can carry their load, they will not be interested.” Hungry Jack Canoe Outfitters is one of the ten outfitters spearheading Becoming a Boundary Waters Family, reaching out to families who have always wanted to go canoeing but balk at the idea of camping with small children. Maybe they go car camping but are unsure how to make the leap into the Boundary Waters Wilderness. Or perhaps they canoed with friends as young adults but never did it as a small child; they just don’t know how to canoe with kids. Either way, the benefits of connecting kids to the woods are too great to pass up.
“Kids grow up to take care of what they know and love.” Sue Ahrendt of Tuscarora Outfitters and her husband started taking their kids camping at eighteen months. She believes that parents understand the value of time in the outdoors and know that something is missing without it. But the unknown involved in taking kids into the wilderness often prevents parents from actually doing it. The outfitters of the Gunflint Trail saw an opportunity: why not compile the tricks of the trade they’ve developed and disseminate that information to interested families?
Taking the Unknown Out of Canoeing with Kids
Now in its second summer, Becoming a Boundary Waters Family has an educational focus, featuring a month-long series of outfitter and U.S. Forest Service seminars as well as a new book, Becoming a Boundary Waters Family: Woods Wisdom Shared by the Outfitters of the Gunflint Trail. The free seminars, aimed at families already vacationing on the north shore and contemplating future trips, will take place at various outfitters along the Gunflint Trail every Tuesday from June 16th through July 14th (see schedule here). Topics include family fishing from a canoe, navigating through the Boundary Waters, paddling and portaging basics and even the history of the Voyageurs. But families already planning or contemplating a trip will also love the new book, designed to take some of the mystery out of how to go camping and perhaps more importantly, what to do with the kids once they are out in the wilderness. The main message? Instead of letting small kids keep you home, you can tailor your trip to the age of the kids.
TIPS FOR FAMILY CANOE TRIPS:
kids get dirtier, wetter, and colder than adults
always always wear shoes!
don’t forget sunscreen
make sure kids have appropriately sized paddles
“Some parents don’t realize that you can get to a campsite in twenty minutes,” Ahrendt said. Trips don’t have to be rugged, and you don’t have to travel far to get the wilderness feeling. Families can select a base camp, and swim, fish and paddle during the day. Working with an outfitter eases the pressure of figuring out where to go and what to bring, and many even offer canoes with four seats so that families can travel with one canoe. Still, even with a base camp and the “how-to” help from outfitters, many parents are hesitant.
Photo courtesy Sue Ahrendt.
Your Kids Will Surprise You
“It’s not fear [that stops families from going],” according to Seaton. “It’s ‘How do I deal with the problems we have at home when we’re out there?’” It’s the picky eating, the whining—all the ways that kids are kids. But, Gunflint outfitters assure parents, you might just be surprised once you get your family into the wilderness. It grounds kids, and they have a good time with all of the simple things.
As Ahrendt explained, “There’s a transformation that is hard to imagine out there. You can give your kids a cook pot and a spoon and sit by the water, and there’s an afternoon. They can throw rocks into the water all day [and be content].” There are so many things to see and do in the wilderness that kids don’t get to do at home, parents are often surprised by how well kids adapt. Seaton remembers a five year old whose family took a trip through Hungry Jack nearly twenty years ago. What she liked best about the trip?
“The rain.”
Sound surprising? Think about it. From her perspective, life was pretty great. She got to play in the puddles and get dirty and wear her new raincoat. Her love for the outdoors became so cemented over the years that she went on to major in recreation and even worked at Hungry Jack for a summer. That’s exactly the kind of relationship with nature that the program is hoping to foster.
Becoming a Boundary Waters Family is a great way to enjoy the woods and provide countless memories for everyone.
A Cooperative Effort
The Gunflint Trail outfitters are filling a unique niche. In the words of Dave Seaton, there are so few places where families can “learn what they need to learn to feel good” about taking their kids into the wilderness. And increasingly, the program’s grassroots efforts to connect families to the land are being supported by an array of sponsors and partnerships, from the Gunflint Trail Association to the U.S. Forest Service. It was a natural fit for the Forest Service, which has a national goal of connecting citizens with the land and getting kids back in the woods. Recognizing that these types of efforts are always more effective when they grow at the community level, they have been partnering in the cost of producing the program, helping plan and develop ideas as well as give seminars.
“We want to see people in urban environments become more comfortable,” said District Ranger Dennis Neitzke. “When you live in the city for a while, you can lose that connection [to the land]. We want to reconnect people to the land.” But he is humble about Forest Service involvement, giving all the credit to the outfitters.
“It started with the outfitters. It was a great opportunity to work together,” he said of the chance to partner with the outfitters.
And indeed, everyone involved in Becoming a Boundary Waters Family is quick to point out that it would not have come to be without the involvement of many. So far, participants are thrilled with the positive responses they have received at events like canoe events in Madison, Wisconsin and Minneapolis. Outfitters believe there is a growing awareness that we are losing something culturally when we lose our connection to the land. There is a timeliness to their message, in light of the growing success of books like Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv, and a general return to family and simplicity sparked by the economy. It will take some time to see the true impact of the program, but in the meantime, Dave Seaton puts it simply:
“You’re gonna do something for vacation. Why not make it something real? Something quality?” Why not take your kids to the BWCAW?
