Canoes on Canoe Lake? No kidding! (Part 2: 150 for 150 event)

As you have read in Part 1, we have been in Algonquin Park camping and here to also celebrate the 150 for 150 event. There has been a lot of sharing on Facebook this week, and I have thoroughly enjoyed reading and seeing all the different takes on the weekend. Some of my favorites have been from the 150for150 group, Wild Canoes, and Camper Christina. So with that, I figured you can get a little view into our involvement.

On Saturday, we decided that we would check out the Canoe Olympics that were happening on East Beach. I knew there would be some swag given away, and you just never know what can happen! It was so great to see people I have gotten to know online, and to chat with new folks. The first part we got to enjoy was some good old tug-a-war canoe style. We were greeted by Team Red and Team White, which I can’t remember their names, and given the rules by Gayle Labuz ( the #WeGetOutside twitter chat coordinator). I was cheering for Team Red, and they gave it their all! Just wasn’t enough to pull out the win in this category.

Watching tug-a-war with our Holy Cow Canoe Company freebie t-shirt.

Gayle Labuz giving rules and directions

Team Red! Go Team Go!

Some shenanigans going on before they begin

It was then time to move up to the picnic area for the next set of games. Again we cheered for Red or White, and I stuck strong to the Red Team, however my son went for White and it was quite the laugh to see mom and son argue over which team to cheer for. This game involved tossing items into a bear barrel. This time the teams ended with a tie, and volunteers were called upon from the audience to try to help break the tie. I, of course, shot my hand up fast! I love these kinds of things, and it is just so much fun to participate in silly games. I was up for the Red Team, but alas, I missed both items and the other team pulled ahead. I went back to watching the rest of the games continue.

Tossing some items

To my surprise, Matt Olsen from Paddle In came around with gifts for the volunteers. He handed out a couple of items to the two kids who participated, and then came over to me. Asked “Do you want a map or stove?” WOW!!! I picked the stove. For anyone out there reading, this was a KIHD stove! I was looking pretty hard at these in February at the Outdoor Adventure Show, and now I was the owner of one! If you read my Part 1, the joke became that this would be our stove for the remainder of the trip since we had forgotten our usual one. We decided to leave after this and hit up the biking trails as we did want to do family things as well.

Woo Hoo!!!

On Sunday after packing up our very wet gear, we headed over to Smoke Lake to register for the events and to get our canoe across to Canoe Lake. I am always looking for practice in my skills, so I decided that I would carry the canoe from Smoke to Canoe. You can even see this in the video from Camper Christina.

All ready to get in our canoe!

We hit the water, joined the many canoes already waiting, took in the speeches, tried to get more prizes, and to soak in as much of the Canadian atmosphere as I could. I won’t bore you with many details, as there are lots already out there. Here are my pictures from on the water 🙂