PADDLE ON
D
uring the 17th and 18th centuries, voyageurs plied the northern waters of Georgian Bay in their namesake canoes, which measured up to 36 feet in length and were crewed by as many as a dozen FrenchCanadian or Metis fur traders. On July 2, voyageur canoes will return to these waters as part of the second annual Current to Killarney CanoeFest, an adventure race that tests the endurance and mettle of participants. The event is the brainchild of Blair Hagman, president and owner (alongside partners Joet Dhatt and Nishin Meawasige) of Manitoulin Brewing Company, a Little Current, Ontario-based craft brewery founded in 2015. Iconic features of the island that Hagman loves so deeply have become immortalized in the names and flavors of the beers his company brews: Bridal Veil Pale Ale, Swingbridge Blonde Ale, Cup and Saucer English Ale, among others. A Blind River-born teacher by trade, Hagman has an appreciation for history, which makes recreating the voyageur journey of yesteryear — or, at least, a 40 kilometer (25 mile) portion of it — particularly appealing.
42
J U LY 2 0 2 2
|
LAKELANDBOATING.COM
The birth of an idea
Paddlers begin in Little Current, on Manitoulin Island, passing under the iconic swing bridge and going past Strawberry Island Lighthouse before hitting the big water. They will then travel along Heywood Island, across the big water again to Partridge Island, then follow the more protected North Channel waterway past Centre, Badgeley and George islands to finish at Killarney, which was home to a furtrade post for many years. For Hagman, bookending the race with Little Current and Killarney felt natural. “Killarney has a great connection to Manitoulin going back more than a century, and people boat over to Killarney all the time. It’s sort of a mainland neighbor,” he explains. The race was conceived in the autumn of 2018 when Hagman and other members of the Manitoulin Brewing Company team paddled a voyageur canoe along the same route to deliver the first batch of the brewery’s Killarney Cream Ale to Killarney Mountain Lodge. The event generated a lot of attention, as much for the crossing as for the beer launch. What began as a
promotional ploy gave birth to the idea of an adventure race. “The thought occurred to me that a canoe race from Little Current to Killarney had a lot of appeal,” Hagman explains, “so I enlisted Rob Mellan of Manitowaning — a craftsman who builds his own voyageur canoes and a veteran of many adventure canoe races — to help plan the race, and we partnered with Killarney Mountain Lodge to host it.”
Bigger and better
The waters from Little Current to Killarney are rated as one of the top paddling destinations in Canada, and the distance between the two communities makes for a hearty but perfectly manageable day-trip canoe adventure, so it seemed obvious that there was real potential. After a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19, the event is back for 2022 and is expected to be bigger than ever. The inaugural race in 2019 was an immediate success, with a dozen voyageur canoes from all over Ontario participating. There were entries in a variety
PHOTOS COURTESY OF CURRENT TO KILLARNEY CANOEFEST
The Current to Killarney CanoeFest returns after a two-year hiatus to take to the waters of Georgian Bay. BY ANDREW HIND
