Tumpline September 2015

Published: Sun, 09/06/15

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Family Camp - Camp familial 2015
In 2015, we celebrated our 32nd family camp!
- 39 families attended
- Each day between 80 and 100 campers were present 
- Presence of alumni spanning the generations from the 1940s to the 2000s

         

Some of the highlights of family camp
- Sean Dagher and Nelson Carter in concert, kicking off the five days with their performance of celtic music, getting everyone up and dancing
- the steak & corn roast, which moved in-doors under the threat of rain
- an exciting casino night and Nominingue warrior
- the children’ overnight to Beaubien beach
- daily trips into Papineau –Labelle to both Acapulco and the Falls
- an exciting triathlon & Spartan race won by the Thomson family
- an evening of wine & cheese while the kids were on their overnight
- games of Spot and Gotcha as well as the Polar Bear dip and daily yoga
- Pillar award presentation with Walter Mingie, Victor Badian and Trevor Smith in attendance
Cedars Dragon Boat Race & Festival

The Camp Nominingue Alumni Association is proud to enter a team in the Cedars Dragon Boat Race & Festival, on Saturday September 19, 2015.

As with all members of the Nominingue community, we love to paddle! So now we're proud to "accept this challenge," and put our paddling skills to good use in supporting the Cedars Cancer Institute of the McGill University Health Centre.

         

Funds raised will go directly to supporting Cedars CanSupport, which offers practical, psychological, emotional and humanitarian support for cancer patients and their families at the MUHC.

Please support our team and make a tax-deductible donation by clicking on the following link. Any amount is greatly appreciated.
 
To make a donation to the CN Alumni team

if you are interested, please come out on race day to cheer us on!  Races will run all through the morning at Promenade Père-Marquette in Lachine.

                   

The following alumni have confirmed that they will be participating:
Ignacio Gallo        John Christou        Alexandre Brunet    Dave de Koos
Shawn Weiland        Mike Shatilla        Patrick Turner        Juan Berlie
Grant McKenna        Ted Kalil        Andrew Battah        Andrew Kucer-Dougherty
Maison-de-Pierre, 1957    Part VIII        Andy Webster
John Blachford drove up to Camp Nominingue on a Friday and by noon the next day, we had decided to embark on a more ambitious canoe trip than either of us had ever been on. This decision on my part meant that I must quit my counselling job, but the money I would have to forfeit was inconsequential when I compared it to the overall experience of the trip we were to take. The following is an account of the 14 days we spent out in the bush.

                     

Tuesday, August 13
I was under a false impression to start that day. I thought we had covered the most difficult part of the territory and that we would now very easily paddle through the rest of the lakes and reach our starting point, Maison-de-Pierre, with no difficulty whatsoever. I suppose, in a way, that it was natural to think like that. My spirit and zest for the trip had begun to drop simply because we were on the last lap…we were on our way home!

This had a bad psychological effect on us…

We were up early at 6:30 and pushed off into the middle of the flooded lake, going southwest towards the dam which, built fifteen years ago, had destroyed the beauty of the lake. We paddled steady and hard, not wanting to stay in the reservoir any longer than necessary. We reached the dam and the base of the lake earlier than expected, at 12:00 noon.

          

From the bottom of Mitchinamecus, we had two alternatives. The first was to reach the Lievre by a small chain of lakes west of the Mitchinamecus River. The second possibility was to take the river itself. We received information from the keeper of the dam that the former route was open due to the number of fishing clubs that had moved into the area. The latter choice meant that we must shoot the Long Rapids. We decided on the former route.

After having lunch by the dam, we started out on our afternoon’s travel. We followed a likely trail which led us into the wrong lake. So we walked 1 1é2 miles back and then turned southeast on the road looking for the right portage. We walked for some time without finding any trail and, as we had accomplished nothing in two hours of fruitless search, we decided to risk ourselves and the canoe on the Mitchinamecus River. It proved to be a good risk.

                       

We portaged from the dam about two miles by the side of the swift-flowing river and finally put in where the water was not flowing too quickly. John paddled well in the stern and, when the canoe picked up speed in the fast-flowing water, we manoeuvred so as to avoid treacherous rocks which lay beneath the surface. We stopped at the McLaren’s lumber depot and were allowed to sleep in an unoccupied bunkhouse. The weather was both sunny and cloudy that day, and for a time threatened rain.
2015 Award Winners / Lauréats 2015
                                      July-juillet               August-août    
Best Project                      Noah Moorcroft        
Dip Award                        Upper Camp            Upper Camp
Most Improved Sailor         Miguel Sanchez        James Ransom
Best Sailor                       Felix Bélanger          Mihail Calitoiu
Most Improved Windsurfer  Arthur Lhoste           Benjamin Rienecker
Best Windsurfer                Kirby Clawson-Honeyman        Luis Fonmarty
Most Improved Kayaker                                   Luc Mazzuca
Best Kayaker                    Zach Feder              Benjamin Rienecker
Most Improved Swimmer    Matthew Zeitouni      Hunter Amory
Athletic Shield         
    Section 1 & 2                Loïc Renaud
    Section 3                     Quinn Kaufer            Vincent Lefebvre
    Section 4                     Felix Valiquette         Jakub Tawakol
    
                     

Team Triathlon
    Section  5                Zachary van Aanhout      Yohan Cornellier-Lippens
                                     Trevor Ennis              Simon Jones
    Section 6                     Gabriel Lefebvre        Jake Blachford
                                     Alexandre Valiquette   Joshua Dancey
Triathlon
    Section 7                     Justin Croteau           Benjamin Rienecker
Night Orienteering
    Intermediate                Antonin Cotte            Francis Lutfy
                                     Philippe Jacques        Jake Blachford
    Senior                        David Khazzam          David Khazzam 
                               Emile Schaaf-Kerwin        Jack Ellis
Intermediate Canoe Race   Philippe Valiquette         
                                     Graeme Tooley        
Senior Canoe Race            Jaime Sanchez        
                                     Patrick Greiss        

        

Feather Point Leaders
    Section 1                     Madex Easey            Léopold Morel
    Section 2         Brahman McKell-Schmerler     Axel Klein
    Section 3                     Quinn Kaufer             Vincent Lefebvre
    Section 4            Marc-Olivier Duranceau        Felix Von Veh & Jakub Tawakol
    Section 5             Zachary van Aanhout          Cameron Reynolds
    Section 6                   Philippe Valiquette        Jake Blachford
    Section 7                    Gabriel Dolbec            Cameron Wredenhagen

Patch Cup Winner             Gabriel Dolbec            Cameron Wredenhagen
                 
        

Tribal Games Results        Davoky, Ukana, Haeka, Tamari, Ahkasa, Woha
Voyageur Games Results    Radisson, La Verendrye, Cartier, Champlain
Leader Award                   Patrick Greiss            David Khazzam
                                     Elijah Christou            Jaime Sanchez
                                     Matthew Zeitouni        Jack McCrudden
                                     Justin Croteau
Voyageur Award               Patrick Greiss
                                     Thomas Hélie
Staff Awards
Mark Conner Award           Mihai Marian
Shannon Memorial Awards  Emmett Blakey
Pillar of Nominingue – Bob Wilkinson
On August 22nd in council ring, the CN Alumni association awarded Bob Wilkinson with its Pillar Award for 2015. Walter Mingie spoke of Bob’s many accomplishments and Ian Wilkinson, Bob’s son, was present to accept the award.

In 1953, Bob arrived at Camp Nominingue with his wife Mary and two children, John 3 and Jane 1. When they left Nominingue, 18 years later, Bob and Mary left with five more children: Merelie, Elaine, Ian, Anne and Kevin.

                    

Bob began as section head of the letter tents (now section 7) before taking charge of lower camp. During his final summers, he served as the camp’s program director. He did a fabulous job. He was a quick thinker, spoke well and always had a plan so that programs went smoothly.

Bob had an artistic side as well. He painted a number of large West Coast First nation painting, two of which still hang in the dining hall. He was a regular contributor to the yearly totem pole projects that Wib McCurdy, working in the craftshop, directed. He also carved red pine roots and stumps into beautiful lamps that lit his cabin each summer while he was at camp.

         

One night, a bat got into the family cabin and everyone was screaming. Bob jumped out of bed, grabbed a broom and chased the bat out the door into the yard…only to see a neighbour standing watching him. Bob had left his bed without any of his clothes!

It was a great evening and the Alumni Association is very pleased to have been able to honour Bob for his many significant contributions to Camp Nominingue.
Personal Project: Making a Paddle     Part IV        Alexander Meyers
Alexander has been a camper for the last two summers and is returning to Nominingue in 2015 in the LIT program. He lives in Holland. As part of a school project, he chose to make a paddle and write about this project.

Reflection

I feel that I have been successful and achieved my goal; this is not just because I made a paddle, but also because I am truly proud of what I have made. Also, I am amazed that I have actually made a paddle, as in the beginning, I was not sure if I would be able to achieve this goal. 

Another reason that I feel that my project “succeeded” is because I know that I will put the paddle to great use in upcoming summers when I can use it on canoe trips. 

What could be improved?

The throat of the paddle (the transition from the blade to the shaft) could be improved by rounding the sides slightly.  

The paddle, is not perfectly smooth; there is a bumpy bit on the side of the throat.

                 

The tip of the paddle is not perfectly round, and should be filed a little bit to make it perfectly symmetrical. The semi-circle at the end of the paddle is not flawless.

            

Another aspect that I should improve is that the wood on the handle is still a little bit uneven, as shown in the picture below. There is also a small groove visible if you look closely at the picture below, which I should have improved by making it smooth.

   

What went well?

One part of the project that went well was my work on the handle. I only started working on the handle with three weeks to go. Surprisingly, after a couple of productive hours working on it, I realized it was almost complete, and as I reflected on the work I had done, I felt really proud. Beforehand, I had expected that carving the handle would be extremely challenging; however, afterwards I realized that it was not as difficult as I had assumed and that I had done a very good job.

                         

The project has made me more aware of the simplicity but also the effectiveness of a canoe paddle – a piece of wood, shaped in a certain way - in relation to orienting in space and time, when you are in the Canadian, lake-filled, wilderness environment.

                    

My process of creating a paddle out of a block of wood connects to being an inquirer and a risk-taker, which are two parts of the IB Learner Profile. I feel that my project reflects that I am an inquirer because I have to develop skills over the time I was working on the project that I did not have before. Furthermore, I also feel that the project reflects the risk-taker dimension of the Learner Profile, because at the beginning of my project I was not sure if I would be able to make a successful paddle, but nevertheless I did work hard to make my dream come true, and it did. So in this way I did take a risk.
Alumni Association News / Nouvelles de l’association des anciens
Please share with us news that you would like to include in the Tumpline that you think might be of interest to other Nominingue alumni.

SVP envoyez nous des nouvelles que vous aimeriez inclure dans une prochaine édition du Tumpline.

         

Alumni Socials
45 alumni attended our 3rd annual alumni weekend at camp from September 4th to 6th. Events included a BBQ, a paddle to the cliffs, a beach party, archery and riflery, council ring and evening campfires. 

Each spring and fall, we try to hold at least one Alumni Social in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. It is always great to renew with recent and less recent alumni. We will announce the next opportunity to re-connect with CN alumni.

Dates and locations of future get-togethers will be posted on Facebook on the Nominingue Socials Group page

To get involved with CN Alumni Association, please contact John Christou at john@prospectorfilms.ca. 
Tumpline Submissions - Soumissions pour cette lettre de nouvelles
We are looking for submissions for our newsletters from campers, staff and parents… from this summer, as well as from recent and less recent alumni. These submissions may be general memories of camp experiences or specific memories about a canoe trip, about a favourite program or a funny experience. Please send your submissions to grant@nominingue.com.  You may submit your stories and memories in English, French or Spanish.

        

Nous sommes à la recherche de textes de campeurs, parents et de moniteurs de l’été 2015… et de souvenirs de nos anciens campeurs et moniteurs des années récentes et moins récentes. Vos textes peuvent décrire vos expériences en générale ou une excursion de canot, un programme favori ou une expérience drôle. SVP envoyez votre texte par courriel à grant@nominingue.com. Votre texte peut être écrit en français, en anglais ou en espagnol. 
 
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