Expedition 2012 Crew

In early April ten young men will leave Lake Dunmore in Salisbury, Vermont bound for James Bay, Ontario, Canada. What’s truly remarkable about the 1200 mile trip is thatthe entire trip they’ll be paddling a fleet of wood-canvas canoes that they’ve built themselves.

The ten paddlers, all in their 20’s, met through Lake Dunmore’s Camp Keewaydin over the past fifteen years. All are experienced canoeists who have paddled throughout the United States and on wilderness rivers in Canada. They hail from states up and down the East Coast, but four are living in Shoreham as they prepare for the trip.

Calling themselves “Expedition 2012,” they describe their trip as “fundraiser, environmental activism, and an honor to Camp Keewaydin’s heritage.” The crew is composed of Tom Bloch, Jeff Chandler, Johnny Clore, James Hogan, Nick Kramer, Rich Morgan, Ben Ramseyer, Kyle Sauer, Bill Souser and Peter Wright.

The Voyage

From Lake Dunmore, the group will travel down the Leicester River to Otter Creek, out to Lake Champlain. They’ll carry their boats around six hydropower projects before they even reach Lake Champlain. Once on Lake Champlain it’s north to the Richelieu River, into Canada and onto the St. Lawrence River. After passing through Montreal, they’ll turn upstream for some 300 miles. A series of lake crossings and portages will bring the team to the Abatibi River, where they will paddle with the current down to James Bay at Moosonee in far northern Ontario.

With the hydro projects, rapids and drainage system crossing, they estimates that they’ll do about 50 miles of portaging. Fifty miles is a long way to walk, even without an 87-pound, wood-and-canvas canoe over your head. But the third pillar of Expedition 2012 is “heritage,” and the travelers intend to be stylishly outdated. The crew will carry their food and gear in handmade wooden boxes called wangans, portage using tumplines, and plan to name their boats after time-honored camp songs.

The Tradition

In keeping with tradition, the men built all five boats from scratch, with the help of Connecticut master builder Schuyler “Sky” Tomson. “We started building the boats last winter with Sky. We milled the wood last fall in Connecticut, and made a lot of trips between here and there to work on them,” Wright said.

The boats are beautiful pieces of craftsmanship. Their waterproofed canvas sides are a silky bottle green, and the gunwales, deckplates and thwarts are carved in ash and cherry. They are slight modifications of the iconic wood-canvas canoe — the Chestnut Prospector. At just over 17 feet, they’re a little longer and slightly deeper than the original. For a repair kit, the team will carry canvas patches, epoxy and a mysterious compound called Ambroid.

Expedition members expect to arrive in Moosonee, Ontario, in about 70 days. If they leave on schedule, they’ll be back at Camp Keewaydin before the end of June.

A trip this ambitious and romantic has caught the attention the outdoor recreation industry. The group is already signed on for two episodes of Outside TV: a preview of the trip this spring and a recap when Expedition 2012 returns. The expedition has been publicized in Canoe and Kayak magazine, and on the web at Outside Online.

With the help of Camp Keewaydin, Expedition 2012 has also picked up big-name sponsors like Polartec and the HD camera company GoPro, as well as, Vermont businesses like Dakin Farms, Cabot Co-operative Creamery and Green Mountain Coffee.