COB TO LIVE.
Last week I (Jenny) participated in a worshop in Sudbury where I was part of a team that built an outdoor earth oven made of Cob. What is cob you ask? It's made from the soil under your feet and if it's clay, add some additional loamy soil, a bit of water and straw, do a heel-toe dance (preferably to ska or bluegrass) to knead it to a homogenous consistency and voila: a batch-0'-cob. Well, it takes a bit more than that, but that's it in a nutshell. Gino Cacciotti, a local stone mason who spends his winters in remote Mexico volunteering in cob projects, facilitated the project and Peter Zwarich & Lara Bradley and their sons Sebastien and Quinn, hosted the workshop in their back yard in downtown Sudbury. It was an extremely satisfying, rewarding & empowering experience to participate in such a project and I encourage everyone to get out and cob at least once in your life. It may change your life!
Instead of going on, here are a few links to learn more...
http://ecosudbury.ca/site/?q=node/6
www.cobworks.com
If anyone is interested in taking part in a future workshop in Northeastern Ontario, please email us at info@sundogoutfitters.infosathse.com. We will likely be hosting at least one workshop in 2007, either an outdoor oven or a cob playhouse (which will be a mini-version of a cob cabin so you'll learn alot about structural techniques). Hope to see you out here!

ONE POT WONDERS WITH JENNY & JIM ON CBC RADIO
This summer, we (Jenny & Jim) are honoured to be featured on Summer North, Northeastern Ontario's afternoon show with Dan Lessard for 5 weeks in a row on Wednesday afternoons. Each show, we are featuring a different one-pot meal, ideal for in your kitchen at home or on your canoe trip, made with little mess and in about 10-20 minutes. If you want to check out the latest recipes, visit www.cbc.ca/pointsnorth and give them a try. We'd love to hear how you liked them and how they turned out!

SUMMER 2006 ... THE SEASON OF STORMS
Wow...I don't think I've ever experienced a summer like this one. Afternoon and evening thunder storms are more or less the norm and, although I'm an outdoor guide, I'm almost nervous to head out on a canoe trip, not knowing what kind of weather is in store. Wind and hail storm warnings almost weekly, ginormous trees falling everywhere, power outages for days (ah...but not for us, we live off-grid on solar power - and although we don't have much power, it's usually there when we need it!) I hope people are thinking long and hard about what may be causing this weather and perhaps thinking twice about how their lifestyle may impact greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. I don't want to preach here, but perhaps, if I may, provide a few suggestions of a few things we do (or have done) that we hope are reducing our impact on earth: Use a non-electric push mower; grow an organic veggie garden; installed solar power in our home; compost our food waste; use a Sunmar (Canadian-made) composting toilet; often buy used clothing and furniture; currently learning sustainable and community oriented building techniques (i.e. cob); own and operate a business that assists people in embarking on wilderness canoe trips where they are living simply and reconnecting with nature for their summer holiday!
May you all remain safe and unharmed during the summer of storms.
(above image: hail stones from June 29 that almost flattened our garden).

EDIBLE WILD IN NORTH EASTERN ONTARIO
On June 25, 2006, a dozen people eagerly gathered equipped with shovels, knives, a curious mind and an adventurous attitude, at our home on Simmons Lake to learn how to identify, gather and cook edible wild plants of Northeastern Ontario, Canada. We invited Nina Nomenko, ecologist and instructor at Cambrian College in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, to facilitate the workshop and after a couple of hours of foraging within a surprisingly small radius, we had enough food gathered to complement a gourmet feast! Cleavers, lambs quarters, daisy, wood sorrel, dandelion, sarsaparilla, cattail, burdock, wild rose, wood violet, fiddleheads...who would have known! Many of the plants gathered were greens, so salad was definitely on the menu. We also stir-fried burdock and sarsaparilla root with wild ginger and garlic, enjoyed pickled fiddleheads of the ostrich fern previously preserved by Nina, pita pizzas with fine wild toppings, traditional bannock with wild strawberries, topped off with a glass of dandelion wine, also contributed by Nina. There is something truly rewarding and satisfying about having the knowledge to identify and prepare wild nutritious food that grows, without any help, right outside my back door. Thanks to Nina, our teacher, for sharing her knowledge with us.

SUNDOG HOSTS ORCA MOVING WATER COURSE
Congratulations to all the paddlers who successfully completed Sundog's ORCA (Ontario Recreational Canoeing Association) Moving Water 1A course this past weekend! Lots of fun and learning and a few swims were had all around...except for Beth and Darren who somehow managed to stay dry? The group of whitewater enthusiasts enjoyed paddling ‘Guse Rapids’ on the Vermillion River off Hwy 144 and a scenic river run down Bannerman Creek. Levels were just right and the weather was cool enough to keep the blackflies away and warm enough to keep everyone content...even in the drink! Surf the nurf and slice the white, man.

Junction Creek Spring Paddling

As promised, we said we'd write back after paddling Junction Creek and post a couple of photos. A few local paddling enthusiasts got together on March 29th and paddled from Fielding Park off Kantola Road down to Mikkola Road...a short paddle but lots of fun areas to 'play'. There ended up being 3 dudes in yaks, 2 dudes in C1's and one dudette (me) in an open boat (Esquif Vertige). Some of us had a couple of good swims and we were crossing our fingers afterwards that the good bugs already in our stomachs would fight off the bad bugs that we swallowed!

Jim's off paddling the Onaping River this weekend and I'll get him to post something about his trip when he gets back.

I'm headed to the Earth Day Festival at Market Square in Sudbury this weekend (Saturday) with Finn...if you're local and want to celebrate the earth and learn more ways on how to be nice to it, come on out!

Happy Earth Day!
Jenny & Jim

This is my first Blog and thanks to Jenny who has set this Blog site up for Sundog Outfitters. Now down to business...
Spring is coming swiftly and surely to Sudbury so the rivers and lakes will soon be open for paddling. I've arranged with Jenny, and a couple of other local paddlers to go for a run down the Junction Creek (local creek running through Sudbury). It's a nice easy whitewater run to start the season off and get ourselves limbered up for the season. It has a few nice "drops" and surfing holes and a couple of longer runs that have eddies and ferrying potential. So when we actually run it next week I'll update this blog and have some pictures as well.

See you later,
Jim

JENNY'S FIRST BLOG
Well...this is my first ever attempt at 'blogging'...I'm participating in a Tourism Keys workshop at the Sudbury Public Library and learning lots of great stuff about making the most of our Sundog Outfitters website!

Spring has arrived and Jim and I are very excited for the approaching paddling season. Jim's been practicing his C1 rolls at the Laurentian University pool in Sudbury the past couple of weeks and paddling friends have already been sending us reports on the status of local creeks and it looks like there will be canoes on Junction Creek within the week! The attached image is of Jim paddling Junction Creek last spring (2005) in an Esquif Vertige.

With all the snow we received this winter, we're predicting a great spring run-off for the rivers...so if you're looking for some some great canoe trip ideas in Northern Ontario Canada, especially on the Spanish River, come paddling with us! Check out the Sundog Outfitters website for more info.

Happy Spring!

Jenny