Newfoundland Exchange - Ottawa End

This year thanks to the 115th Sea Scouts we were presented with a unique opportunity to participate in an exchange program that is part of the Canada 150 celebrations. A couple of their Scouters and Venturers paid us a visit early in the new year explaining the exchange and that they needed up to 10 or 12 more Scouts or Venturers to participate. 8 of our 10 Scouts ended up taking part, and we just finished the leg of the exchange where we hosted the troop from Newfoundland. The troops involved in the exchange are 115th Ottawa Sea Scouts, 32nd Ottawa, 24th Ottawa, 17th Ottawa, 1st Topsail (Newfoundland), and 1st Conception Bay South (Newfoundland)

Our guests from Newfoundland arrived on Wednesday June 28th, and were whisked away to the City View United Church where the 115th meets. We all gathered there for a 6pm potluck designed to get to know each other, and all the Scouts including the ones from Ottawa slept overnight in the church, again with the goal of getting to know each other.

On Thursday morning Scouts breakfasted in the church and parents arrived for 9:30 am to ferry Scouts over to the 115th's canoe base at the Rideau Canoe Club on Mooney's Bay.  We got our gear together and headed out southward on the canal, with a steady drizzle for weather.  The drizzle was on-and-off all day but that did not dampen spirits.  We made it to the Black's Rapids lockstation and went through the lock in the canoe to explore some of the area south of there, then headed back through the lock and returned to base for about 5pm as planned.

On Friday we met at the Dow's Lake Pavilion for a day of Transit Amazing Race.  Teams were formed comprised of a mixture of Scouts from Ottawa and Newfoundland, and off they went a little after 10am.  This is an annual activity enjoyed by the Heritage Area Scouts where teams explore the city on their own without direct adult supervision - though there are Scouters at every checkpoint to ensure all Scouts are accounted for at each leg.  And indeed just like every time we do this, a couple of Scouts did manage to go missing for a short period of time on one of the final legs of the race.  But we were able to quickly locate them and get them back on course with the help of our cell phones.   That evening the 32nd and our billets gathered at Scout Jasper's house for a BBQ.

Saturday was Canada Day and we met at City View United Church in the pouring rain.  Scouts were asked to choose between one of three activities - a museum tour, an attempt to make our way onto Parliament Hill, or a paddle northwards on the canal to the Chateau Laurier.  And Scouters divided themselves up accordingly.  Your humble author was part of the Parliament Hill contingency and can only report on that.  We boarded the bus with the museum contingency and were dropped off at the Museum of History around 9:30 am.  From there we made our way across the Alexandra bridge, through Major's Hill Park, and into the eastern gate lineup.  We made slow but steady progress in the line for almost 3 hours until the line stopped completely.  We later found out that they stopped admitting new people onto the Hill because of excessive water on the lawn - even though by this point the rain had long since stopped.  We decided to make our way out of the crowd and re-grouped further down Elgin street.  From there we decided to hit the Jazz festival near city hall, then make our way across town to meet at the War Museum where the bus was picking us back up again.  We arrived in time to tour the museum, then returned to City View United.

The next day we met at 2pm again at the church, and convoyed to Smith's Falls where we camped out at the lock station for the night before beginning our journey the next day.  In the morning after a breakfast of bacon and hash we walked over to the Rideau Canal Museum and spent a good 90 minutes touring it.   We then returned back to the lock station and packed up our canoes and began our canoe trip.  It only took a few hours to make it to Kilmarnock lockstation where we set up camp for the night.   In the evening we enjoyed fishing and hours of swimming below the locks.

On Tuesday morning we awoke and cooked a breakfast of toasted bagels, cheese and bacon, then packed up and set off again in our canoes.   It was an extremely hot day, and by the time we'd arrived at Merrickville several Scouts, Venturers and Scouters were showing some signs of sun stroke.  In fact one Scout began to vomit and was so miserable we had to contact his parents to come get him.  The next day he reported that he was fine.  In the late afternoon and early evening everyone toured the town of Merrickville, then came back for an epic supper of rice and Indian curry.   Afterwards there was more swimming in one of the longer locks.

Wednesday it was oatmeal and leftovers for breakfast, and because this was quick with no cooking we were able to depart at a record 9:30am.  It was another brutally hot day on the water but we all made sure to encourage each other to drink more, so we managed to avoided the problems of heat stroke from the day before.  By 1pm we were all on shore at our destination in Burritts Rapids, with a good 30km or so journey behind us over the last few days.  Skipper Leo was already present and had our lunch of beans ready when we got there.  Parents started to arrive and we eventually got everything packed up and headed off back to Ottawa.   That evening we all met at City View to review our week, and say goodbye to our friends from Newfoundland.

On Thursday morning they were at the airport for their return flight.  In less than 3 weeks the folks in Ottawa will fly to Newfoundland for the second leg of the exchange.

Follow this link for all the available photos of the trip.

This link takes you to a map of the paddle we did along the Rideau River.