Here`s to wonderful wilderness white water women!!!
Here`s to the Grand Rivekeepers!!!
and....Here`s to NOT damming our rivers!

If you can - go and paddle `The Grand`(Mista-Shipu) in Labrador in 2012!!! 

The Churchill Chix (Mista-Shipu mama`s) Lynette Chubb, Dagmar Burhop,  Joyce Anderson, Dot Bonnenfant and (non-YCCC) friends: Karen Jones and Lynn Gillespie!!
It was an honour and absolutely sheer delight to paddle with these experienced, skilled, good humoured women blessed with wisdom, good judgement and generosity of spirit!

Thanks to the YCCC for all the opportunities that made it possible for us to do this trip in safety and delight.  Three of us are white water instructors, our certifications and training include white water river running, river rescue, wilderness first aid, advanced wilderness first aid, navigation..... all of us with extensive wilderness travel..... and we can top this list off with skills re: lining down rapids, marathon canoeing AND CAMP COOKING like you wouldn`t believe!!!!...

 The whole trip was an adventure and full of good hearted memories. Driving 1700 kms from Ottawa to Churchill Falls, 10 days on the river, and 3 days - 2,000kms from Happy Valley Goose Bay back home to Ottawa (2 of those were on gravel - trans Labrador Highway!!! yup - ya need a `real`spare tire!!!)

We had a fabulous trip down the river known as `The Grand River`to Labrador folks, known as The Churchill River to us southerners and ... known as Mista-Shipu for 5,000 years to the Innu.

It is a stunningly gorgeous but now little traveled river running through stunning valley corridors with green forested mountains, huge cliffs with waterfalls, sandy eskers and sand banks and Muskrat Falls......and history.  We travelled on fast flowing water, slack water, challenging rapids - some runnable, sneakable...and one rapid with lining required (around and over boulders the size of a big truck!!!)
Portaging would have been interesting`once you climbed a cliff and got through the forest choked with blown-down trees! Ahhh... but the old portage trail was there!!! 1 foot wide and 4-6 inches deep winding through the forest along the cliff edge. A `beaten path`from 5000 years of hunters and trappers feet, passing through in spring and autumn!!

This river, a major watershed and route through Labrador... has been traveled for 5000+ years. For millenia it has flowed from interior of Labrador running mightily and freely to the ocean. But maybe not much longer. You may have heard announcements that this river is to be dammed (I would say damned).

This trip, besides being a much needed respite from `civilization`... profoundly influenced me to tell it`s story.

I want to encourage us to paddle our rivers, to know them, to speak for them, to protect and honour them.
They flow through our geography, history, communities ....and through our hearts - literally.
I want us to know that our rivers, our land, our ecosystems ....and our lives  are threatened by dams.

I want us to realize that damming our stunning northern rivers...well, any of our `wilderness rivers`... is NOT necessarily a `green and clean` energy production option.

With thanks to the Grand Riverkeepers, I`m starting to understand that those of us in the `south`(in Eastern Canada and in Northeastern USA) who filp a switch without thinking.... are turning on our lights, our washing machines, furnaces, industries...etc... at the price of flooded river valleys which create destroyed watersheds and landscapes ... causing mercury poisoned waters and fish which continues through mercury poisoned food chains throughout the watershed to the ocean. Dammed watersheds give us a legacy of lost historical sites, often uncompensated thus disadvantaged local people who formerly lived on and with the land, destroyed cultures and threatened local economies.

Our group is so appreciative of the Grand Riverkeepers!!!   They were so incredibly generous to our group with river, historical and cultural information as well as incredible (!) logistical support and hospitality at the end of the trip.  We cannot thank them enoug!!!

Please check out  http://www.grandriverkeeperlabrador.ca/ the info provided may hopefully give you rationale and inspiration to protect our rivers.
If you can - go and paddle `The Grand`(Mista-Shipu) in Labrador in 2012!!!

Here is to learing more about conserving energy, living more sanely..... and learning about and advocating for conserving our water, our watersheds, our land and our lives... for ourselves AND our fellow Canadians living invisibly (to us) in northern communities.....and for all of our grandchildren`s children.