For those of you who know or have heard of me, y'all know I have been working on this cross-Canada kayak trip for a few years now. Saturday morning I am leaving for Winnipeg, Manitoba where I will meet up with Sean, Ken's buddy, who will help me get to Grand Rapids, Manitoba, my starting point for the final leg of my trip. I will have contact with the electronic media via Cell phone at possibly two locations during the early stage of my trip - the day I start at Grand Rapids, maybe two days later at Norway House (my ancestral home (Dogrib Cree Nation) besides England), maybe at Gillam (612-kms at the half way point) and then nothing (508-kms length) during the second half of the trip. The total trip length is 1120-kms. Total trip distance since I started back in 2003 will be just a tad over 3000-kms.

This year I will meet up with some rather unique dangers, namely the Polar Bear and the Barrens Grizzley. If I spot either near where I need to land for the night, I will just keep paddling. I am well prepared to defend myself against possible bear attack so I am not too worried. I am not worried about weather as I won't go on the water unless conditions are ideal. I have time to take it easy and enjoy my other favorite hobby: photography.

I expect to land at Norway House to be reunited with the tribe my ggggrandmother comes from. They don't know that I am coming so the meeting should be interesting. I am excited to have as another stopping point, York Factory, the spot where my ggggrandfather arrived back in ~1794 when he started working for the HBC fur traders as an apprentice clerk and eventually retired at Fort Carlton, the fort he built to carry on the fur trade in what would become western Canada. What remains of York Factory is one large trading house, abandoned decades ago and built some 210 years ago. The building has been preserved so that folks can visit the site and see where it all started in Canada.

There will be four portages around hydroelectric dams and two possible sites where rapids run unabated. I will worry about those once I get to their locations. I know where they are so you don't have to worry too much about watching me do yet another rebuild project.

See y'all in mid-July, weather permitting.

Robert (Heading out for a )N(orthern adventure) Pruden