Algonquin Trip

I enjoyed the canoe trip very much. This was my first year in outdoor ed, and I had no idea what the trip was going to be like. I was told that it was really fun by people who have already taken the trip, but I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy myself or not, as I’m not really the outdoorsy type. The scenery was beautiful and the weather was great most of the time.

I enjoyed how everybody had to work as a team,  because I feel like it brought everybody closer together. The first two days were hard work and I was sore from portaging and canoeing, so it was really enjoyable on the third day when we all got to go to the water slides and hang out. I chose not to go in the water but it was really fun watching the people who went down the slide. I think we all really enjoyed sitting around the fire and talking at night, and a lot of us enjoyed playing cards together.

This trip taught me a lot about responsibility. At the beginning of the trip I was more focused on making sure my canoe was loaded and my tent was set up, and etc but throughout the trip I began to understand the importance of helping out other people ( such as when we helped another school portage their stuff ).

I learned a lot on this trip, about canoeing and portaging.

On the first day, the winds were really strong on the water and it was difficult to paddle. I was afraid that our canoe would tip but I quickly learned not to panic, and to move my body with the canoe.  I had never portaged before, and I was really slow at the beginning. The packs were extremely heavy and the trails were really uneven, but by day three the entire group ( including myself)  seemed to have improved quite a bit. I found that we were much more efficient during the portages on the third and fourth day.

Though most of the trip went really well, there were a few things that we could have done better. The food was delicious and nobody went on an empty stomach but in some cases the food was not divided equally which resulted in some people not getting as much food. ( Such as when Mr. Brouwer didn't get any bacon. ) Another thing that could have been better was on the first night, we did not rebuild the fire pit so there was not a lot of room to cook anything. If we had rebuilt it, food would have been cooked much faster. On the other nights we did not have this issue as we were able to fit two grills on the the fire pits.

If I could do the trip again, I would probably try to help out more with the cooking. Im sure there was always something that I could be doing, but there were a lot of points where I just did not know what to do. I tried to help out with cutting the wood but I really sucked at using a saw. I would also try to challenge myself more with canoeing and such.