Canoe Trip Reflection

The canoe trip on Algonquin Park was a great experience, and I would love to do it again.

The preparation for the trip was a little nerve-wracking, as I had no idea what to expect. We also had a holiday the Monday before the trip, so we had to make sure not to forget anything at home, or else we'd be in trouble. If I were to do this trip again, I would try to make sure that we had that day before to make sure everyone has everything. Luckily, we didn't forget anything major, and had enough room for everything.

The trip itself was fun, and not as hard as I thought it would be. Canoeing on the first lake was rather difficult, as it was conditions I had not experienced before. It was really wavy and I got soaked, but it was fun all the same. The portages were not all that great at first, but as we got more experienced we became more efficient and they were a lot less work. Some of the portages were more difficult then others, both because of the distance and because of the bugs.

I think that my group was quite efficient in terms of cooking. Everyone helped out, whether it was preparing everything, cooking it, or washing the dishes. The only thing I didn't like was for the breakfast on the last day, it was about finished before some people in our group came out of their tents. Although, that might've been because me and Matt were so efficient getting it ready.

Compared to the hiking trip last year, I think that this year was less work, but also less sense of community. Last year, everyone was walking together, so you could talk to people. When canoeing, it's rather difficult to talk to people in a different canoe, and usually you would pick your friends to go in the canoe with you. Having a big group to cook with was much better then everyone cooking for themselves I found, simply because it was less work for each person. Sure, they had to make enough for 28 people, but they only had to do it for three meals.

I think something our group, both my cooking group and as a whole class, could work on is communication. For my cooking group, there was a slight miscommunication about what we were going to do about that bannock that we had planned to make for desert. There was no ingredients for it on the shopping list, so we didn't buy any. Then we were going to make the dough mix from what was in the foods room, but nobody ended up doing it. Luckily, we had cookies that were originally part of our snack, but we used those for desert. As a class, there was some communication lacking on the portages. Of course, they got better, however at one portage there was a misunderstanding/lack of communication from the teachers. Nearly all the canoes were on the water, and everyone was floating there wondering what was taking so long. Ms. Lalonde eventually decided to go back to investigate, and it was discovered that we were supposed to be getting firewood. Apparently we had been told that, but no one had heard anyone say anything about it. Luckily, it was all resolved, though we did make it to our campsite later than anticipated.

Despite some miscommunications and bugs, the trip was a success in my opinion. I had fun, I learned that groups work better if they know that they're suppose to be doing, and it was a great experience.