I'm glad to say that my new kayak has left Ontario and is I hope westbound as I type. Ed got the boat onto the bus today and we expect it in about four days. I arrive in Edmonton around 09:00 hours Monday morning and will be there until Tuesday evening. I should be able to pick the boat up with Hawk and deliver it to the air freight office for shipment home.

We had our weekly meeting with CERTNWT and all went well progress is slow but sure and thats what counts. Flash cards seem to work well and the crew is starting to remember them so I will continue to use them. I admit that it helps keep everything fresh in my mind. I find a few spelling errors and minor flaws in the cards and I will redo these cards and correct the errors, why not I made them.  Training is slow but sure and they will eventually get there I hope.

The Virtual walk program today was acting funny I was allowed to add my steps but the map of highlighted trail did not appear. I added 17,000 steps today and that puts me well on the way to Princeton but it is uphill all the way.

Today was very nice out and we managed to get a few things done. I sold a raffle ticket which is great as everyone counts. I also managed to get a ticket sales noticed posted on the electronic bill board at the Multi-Plex which could help. The best news is that we finally have the bike on display in the Shirt Shack which will make a big difference. I must admit it was nice to see it running down the road on the way to its new home however temporary.

I also continued the Virtual trail walk and knocked off 14,000 steps. This puts me a few days NNE of Hope and in about 3 days I will turn and begin the descent to Princeton, BC. which at the present rate will take about 2 weeks.

The ground around the house is slowly drying up and soon I will stop pumping. I can begin throw bag practice out the front door again and can set up my Rope access training area as the huge puddle in that area is gone. I can practice about half of the basic rope access moves in front of my house, which is handy.

I will also start renos in the house soon as I will have some time for it. That is the biggest project by far and it will take a while to figure out where to start. All in good time but summer is shorter than one likes and I have a very busy one lined up. I'm sure it will fly by and I will still have lots to do this fall.

I'm off to the big smoke of Edmonton for a couple of days on Monday and will be back Tuesday evening. Wednesday is free and Thursday we have the Spring Clean-up. This a great chance for both the Archery Club and the Paddlers. Non profits need to take advantage of every chance they get to raise a few bucks.

I noticed about five days ago that the seagiulls are home again for the summer. This is a sure sign of open water somewhere as fish are a good part of their diet along with anything else they can beg, borrow or steal. I saw that Frame lake is showing lots of open water along the edges and this will rapidly grow as the water is now moving around under the ice as well as melting from above.

This evening was the last indoor Archery session for the season and we will resume indoor shooting in October. The weather is nice enough and the ground dry enough to shoot outside. Funny here as Archery is a summer sport for the mosst part but we get to busy with other things and shoot as a group very seldom until fall. Ian and I get together occassionally to pluck Yew  but I'm paddling most of the time and have other responsibilities that require spending time training and practicing swift water skills and CERT team stuff. We run out of hours in a day fast enough thats for sure, and we have about twenty daylight hours a day during summer. 

I received word last night that I passed my Search Managers test with 83 % and I can live with that . The errors I made were mainly simply enough when given four choices that were all right you had to pick the least right of all. Had I stuck to my first reponse I woiuld have nailed it but I over thought it and went the wrong way on each occassion. Thats fine as I know know where and why and have fixed this in my small but sometimes handy to have brain.

Getting all the boats ready for a season of paddling will take a day or so and working on boats I enjoy so that is grand. The Red Canoe Project is just about done with the spring wax job and I will finish the waxing tomorrow. Next is getting the sea kayaks ready, the creek boat is at the local cement pond for the roll sessions and this year we will flame paint Thumbs little white water boat and she thinks thats cool. Ted can give me some advice and them I'll give it a go. I have to  foam outfit the squirt boat when it arrives, but I need it here to try on for size.

Next week we have a double spring clean up area as we are teaming up with the Arctic Archers only makes sense as some of us are in both groups and would be at both anyway. We felt that one huge group would work get and we can knock off both areas at once.

Next will be the Olde Stope Hill clean up, this area the Paddlers adopted and clean two times sometimes three each summer. The city supplies all the garbage bags and we do the work and in exchange they have placed a sign at the bottom of the stairs going to the Pilots Momument stating that the area is Kept clean compliments of the Paddlers for Parts Association #1545, we think it is a fine trade off.

The next event will take place in July and is the long awaited "Fifth Annual Paddlers Sociable Affair."

I am now well past Hope BC and can barely see the lights behind me as I climb towards Merritt BC, I will however turn east with the trail before Merritt and head for Princeton, weeks away yet, but we are heading the right way.

Thanks folks for dropping by and hope that you all return, Greg

The double length walk and 3 hours of pool sessions seemed to have tuckered me right out.  Yesterday was a big day and I'm glad that I got everything done. I seem a little stiff and sore for my efforts but thats the price.  The sessions ran smoothly with lots of folks getting a fair ways along in their roll. I was just happy to get a boat in the water and have some fun.

Today a cleaned the yard and managed 3,500 step walk,  just enough to add a little progress to my route map.

Weather here is getting very nice, sunny and warm but, still dipping down to freezing at night. Looks like we're going to have a summer and here sometimes I wonder if it will ever show up. I actually don't mind the winter but these last few weeks seem to be dragging out thats for sure.

The 4 day forecastis for -4 during the night and +4/5 during the day. Still above freezing but not the +15 or so we were getting. However we know it is coming and so a few more days one way or the other does not really matter. Come on Sun, time to come out and play. Greg

I had quite a day today and managed to make 24,000 steps on my walk across Canada. The lights of hope are about ten thousand steps to my east and will be having lunch there tomorrow.

I was busy running around and almost forgot that the Somba K'e kayak club had a two hour pool session scheduled. Great fun managed to pull a few Eskimo rolls and help some new folks on their way to a roll. Great fun but tiring. I had time to grab a quick bite and then was back at the pool to help Kathy and crew with the roll session. Narwal Paddling offers Eskimo roll courses every spring and I like to help if they need a spare hand. Today the boats were all full and we had a lot of folks. Some were totally new and others were refreshing their skills.

Raffle ticket sales are a little slower than I would like but I think that they will improve, they better or we're in it deep. I have a bunch sold just a matter of crossing paths with the folks at the right time and today I had a pick up to do and ran out of time. Hard to be as many places at once as I seem to have to be. I can fix it Monday no problem and some of the mail in stuff should be there by then as well. Funny mail from Hay river must first travel south to Edmonton and then gets flown to Yellowknife. would be just a quick to fly it from Hay River but I don't run the Post Office, (probably a good thing as I have a hard time finding my glasses most days.)

Watched a great video clip of the ice pouring over Alexander Falls, these are located about 300 miles south of Yellowknife by road on the Hay river just outside of Enterprize  NWT. The falls are 107 feet high and really pretty wide. I think it was 2004 but maybe a bit later these falls were jumped by two crazy (but skilled kayakers) and at the Reel Paddling Film festival we just held we watched the video of the jump amazinf scary four minute video.

Hay River is preparing fpr the annual flood waters as the Hay River runs right through town, Ice jams can cause the water to back up and start flooding. I understand that we now have an open section of river at the Yellowknife River bridge, nothing huge yet but you can paddle it which is a good thing. The edges will go first as the river mouth expands its open area and we will be edge paddling along the shore as the ice in the bays begins to dissappear. There will be miles of open water on the lake while a big ice pan floats around the center of the lake slowly breaking up and heading down the Mackenzie River. I like paddlingin the andled ice and among the flows but you have to watch the winds as they shift and what was once open water behind you can all of a sudden be a huge amount of candled ice flows that seal off your retreat. Not a huge problem if you remember to watch for it. Like among the ice can make for some interesting paddling. I'm tired and rolled out so I'm off to dream of ice free rivers and lakes. Cheers Greg

Today was another awesome day weather wise in Yellowknife and the melting continues nicely. I managed to get in a really good walk almost 20,000 steps and I'm now one big day from Hope, BC.I returned home and contiuued pumping the back yard out and  raking up the mess from the fall.  My BBQ is now snow free and I decided to fire her up and grill a chop. I like to cook outside as much as possible in the summer to reduce the use of household power. I have the worlds oldest stove and when cooking I'm sure the power meter looks like a helicopter rotor. I should really get rid of it and probably will this summer. I have a few reno ideas in mind and a new stove would be part of it. I would like a little Propane stove with a small oven. I broil most of the meat that I eat and seldom fry foods as it is just to hard to lose the gut these days.

Smokey the almost dog likes it when I BBQ as well knowing hes in for the bones and a few leftovers if he is lucky. Smokey can smell a BBQ from quite a distance and isn't shy about showing up uninvited.

Smokey the almost dog will be moving south in a few weeks late June at the latest, as Todd his owner is relocating. I had hoped to bring him to the 'Annual Sociable" but,  he will have moved by then. Things could change and we may have the pleasure of his company a while longer.  Smokey was getting pretty good at canoe sittting and seemed to enjoy being paddled around.

This here along with the squirt boat I'll be trying to teach myself the high and low braces for canoes, they are easy enough in a kayak but I find that I tip canoes.

I have some nerve damage left overs from a stroke and this makes a canoe fairly uncomfortable for me and so I stick with the kayaks mainly. As the leg gets better I hope to spend more time in the canoe as I think to be a well rounded paddler I should be at least competent in a canoe, I'll worry about getting good later.

 CERTNWT trainining with the water kite shark and swift water type stuff will keep us busy and I'm not sure that we will be able to squeeze everything we need to do into  the short summer we have. I'm doing the Avalache Awareness program over the net and it is pretty interesting and there are a few other online courses that I'm taking as well.

The GPS as made a lot of the older ways of doing things really obsolete but they are still handy to know and even fun to pracice. Not to mention if you have really nice kayak you probably blew the GPS money on the boat.

Wondering how fast your drifting with the current, well lets see if we can figure it out. Put on your favourite Algebra hat and lets get busy. First pick a fixed object on the river bank and time how long it takes your kayak to float by it, take the time and divide the length of your boat by it and you will have the feet per second the boat travelled, now multiply this by 3,600 (number of seconds per hour) and finish by dividing this by 6,076 feet  (Length of n. mile) and you will now have the knots per hour that you are travelling, wasn't that fun. Once you have established this base you will know that if you try it again and it takes only half as long your going twice as fast or if it takes twice as long to pass the mark your doing half the speed. With a bit of practice you will be able to guessimate your boat speed pretty close or close enough for the rivers I travel. You can buy a knot meter for kayaks if your that concerned but me I'm happy just to go as far as I can or untill I want to stop be it 1 mile or 50 miles later. My best day was 75 miles in 8 hours on the Mackenzie River and that was enough for me and Sploosh that day. Cheers Greg

I would like to extend a warm (we hope ) welcome to everyone and the month of May. Most folks have been paddling for a while now and soon our season will open in Yellowknife.

May is an interesting month as I will spend the first week "pumping like madmen, all the way" as Stan Rodgers would say and that will keep the local swamp in check. My backyard is the lowest place around, so I get all the ground water for the neighbourhood in behind the shack. I build a sump system a couple of years ago and it makes a huge difference in keeping the area dry and bug free come summer.

The snowbanks covering the kayaks and canoes are just about gone and they all made it through the winter in fine shape. I have a nice area in the willows where I store the boats, I block them up on edge and tarp them in and they are snug for the winter. Each spring I go over them all and clean and lubericate cables and touch up what ever needs to be done. I do this in the fall so spring cleaning really goes quick and takes very little effort.

This is the busy season for the Paddlers for Parts and we are all ready planning the spring "Sociable Affair" for the month of July sometime. We have the City Spring clean up fund raiser to do some time between the 11th and 17th of May, and then the Old Stope Hill Clean up in July.

My big concern at the moment is selling enough raffle tickets to make sure there are none left before the draw. We have until June 22nd/08 before the draw but I'll rest easier when the tickets are gone.This is our biggest fund raising attempt yet and so I will rest easier when we have sold the tickets and all the expenses are covered. Worry wart but it is a lot of loot to be responsible for.

Now that summer is approaching it is a good time to get out those throwbags and get back into practice. Being accurate is the most inportant part and speed runs a close second. No sense in throwing a bag really fast to the wrong spot. As the old blacksmith used to say, "First get good, then get fast." Get the whole family involved practicing in the Park or backyard. I like to roll hula hoops for targets or tie two hoops to a pole and walk with it over your shoulder at certain distances, one in front, one to the rear and see if they can put the bag through the hoop. Vary your speed as they improve getting them to anticipate your next move. River currents will fool you so try and trick them.

Throw bags are your first line of defence when common sense has failed and your in over your skill level or you mave missed your line. You want to be sure that you and your friends are up to the challange as it is a must have river skill. Cheers Greg

Today was beautiful warm for us like +10 or more and sun everywhere. The snowbanks were taking a beating and huge puddles of runoff are laying on the ice. These are all good things for us that want to go paddling.

I spend the day walking and pumping out the backyard and managed to sell a few raffle tickets. Lots of my neighbours are picking up tickets and I hope one of them wins it. More of the same is predicted for tomorrow and that is all right with me. Roads are almost dry enough to break out Swoop my touring bicycle. I hate the cleaning that goes with spring riding so I wait until everything dries up and I can avoid the issue.

Thats right above freezing all day and rain showers. That is fine as rain is hard on the remaining snow and it is really hard on the ice. All that warm water sitting on the ice really helps the ice to candle and that isn't far from disappearing all together. I'm looking forward to a paddle on the bay and getting the squirt boat wet for it first time ever.

Yesterday was supposed to be an easy day but it seems standing all day and selling tickets is harder than we thought and both Chris and I were tuckered right out. However today I got right back into things and have knocked off another 20,000 steps along the Trans Canada Trail.  I'm now pointing north again and heading for Hope. I also managed to swim 70 lengths and ride the wind trainer for about 20  minutes, that should do for one day.

I have managed to sell a few more tickets and have generated some real interest from as far as Vancouver Island. I think that the raffle will run smoothly and the hardest part will be pulling all the tickets. In a reverse draw we have to pull all the tickets and mount them on a board as they are pulled so that folks can check and see if they number has been drawn. Finding a charming ticket puller that wants to pull 550 tickets won't be easy so we will line up a few. The catch is they can't have a ticket in order to draw the tickets and most ladies we know want this bike pretty bad. Anyway we have a little while to sort all this out, the big thing is to sell all the tickets as we can't afford not to. This is the biggest fund raising effort that the Paddlers have been involved with and we are hoping to be able to accomplish a lot with what we earn. The draw will be held on the proper date regardless of where we stand as it fits perfectly with Harleys Annual show and shine. That being the case we want to be sure that the tickets are all gone so that we reap the maximun benefit. Cheers, Greg