Jonathan R. Schmidt

It’s a bear!

On the August long weekend Darlene and I, Mike Janzen and Aaron and Geraldine found some watercrafts and toured around Upper Kananaskis Lake. Our trek was beautiful, we stopped by some waterfalls, a dried up waterfall that we saw last year and some other scenic spots. The weather was gorgeous and we only encountered a few significant waves during our tour of the lake.

The big excitement of our trip was encountering a grizzly bear. We were on the home stretch when Aaron & Geraldine spotted the creature walking along a hiking trail. We followed the bear for about 500 metres along the shore. Then, much to our surprise the big animal lowered itself into the water and began swimming! It swam quite fast and ended up on an island about 300 metres from shore. It then bolted across the island and went out of sight. It was a wonderful experience! Check some of the pics here.

Tracking the weather forecast

I, like many of you, am looking forward to the long weekend. I would like to go canoeing with Darlene’s family, but we will only go canoeing if the weather cooperates. With today’s long term and short term weather forecasts we often look in anxious anticipation to what the weather is going to be for an upcoming long weekend. For example, last weekend our friends got married and I watched as the 7-day forecast changed from cold, 80% p.o.p. to sunny partly cloudy with a high 15 degrees. Having taken a few courses in climatology I do undestand the limitations of forecasting, especially for southern Ontario. Nonetheless there should be some accountability or maybe a reality check for those of us who actually believe the forecast might have some bearing on reality. Well, for this week I’m going to track the weather forecast for Kitchener for only Saturday May 20. The results will be posted below. I will try to track any changes in the 7-day forecast for Kitchener from theweathernetwork.ca and post them here.

Results (Date/Time & Forecast/High):

9:00am Mon May 15/06 – Sunny / 8 degrees / 0% p.o.p.
1:00pm Mon May 15/06 – Sunny / 14 degrees / 0% p.o.p.
7:00am Tues May 16/06 – Cloudy with showers / 13 degrees / 40% p.o.p.
4:00pm Tues May 16/06 – Cloudy with showers / 13 degrees / 40% p.o.p.
8:00am Wed May 17/06 – Cloudy with showers / 15 degrees / 40% p.o.p.
4:00pm Wed May 17/06 – Scattered showers / 15 degrees / 40% p.o.p.
9:00am Thu May 18/06 – Cloudy with showers / 18 degrees / 70% p.o.p.
9:00am Fri May 19/06 – Mainly sunny / 16 degrees / 10% p.o.p.
3:00pm Fri May 19/06 – Cloudy periods / 16 degrees / 0% p.o.p. (30% pop for AM)

Jon’s Adventure Map

Looking to go hiking, canoeing or cycling in Ontario? Having some education and experience with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) I have long wanted to have a map or mapblog component to my website. I have worked a little bit with google maps api components, but I haven’t spent enough time to create something to my liking. Well if you can’t do it yourself, let someone else! You can now check out my Adventure Map courtesy of Your ‘G’ Map, which uses google api maps capabilities to map custom locations of your choice.
Here’s a screen shot and link to the map.

Canoeing – All in the family

I was checking the website of my brother-in-law Stephen Schmidt Stutzman and I came across some pictures from a trip him and Sherri took to Frontenac Park. There are some neat pictures of the lake where they canoed, some candid shots of Steve swimming and this great shot (above) of the canoe on top of their little Honda Civic hatchback. Some people wonder how Darlene and I can get a canoe on top of our Jetta. Sherri and Steve prove that’s nothing, a canoe can even fit on a hatchback!

Grand River Canoe Trip (again)

Growing up in Waterloo Region meant that my dad and I took many canoe trips down the Grand River. Our favourite stretch of river was from Cambridge to Paris. Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, before most of the outfitters began serious Grand River outfitting we had the river mostly to ourselves. We also seemed to have the fish all to ourselves. An afternoon trip from Glen Morris to Paris would yield at least a dozen good sized smallmouth bass.
On Sunday dad and I set again for another Grand adventure. Re-living old times we departed from Cambridge, put the bike in the canoe (see past entry for explanation), the fishing rod and paddled until we felt like stopping. In typical Grand River fashion we hopped in and out of the canoe to avoid shallow waters, awed at Great Blue Herons and even caught a few smallmouth bass. Since we weren’t pressed for time we stopped to venture up a coldwater crick flowing into the Grand River. The water was so cold and clear I just wanted to drink it, but didn’t in case of invisible contamination. Overall the day was wonderful and just like old times we had the river pretty much to ourselves. In total we saw a couple canoes, two kayaks and a few fishermen. The sun was shinning, the weather was beautful and it was just me and dad. What a wonderful blessing from God, the Creator of it all.

Grand River Adventures – Glen Morris to Brantford

Given all this great weather, it’d be a shame not to get on the Grand River and do some canoeing. On Saturday Darlene and I set aside everything else and spent the day on the river. Instead of doing the standard Cambridge to Paris trip, which I’ve done countless times, we started our trip in Glen Morris and ended in Brantford. The weather was beautiful, sunny but not too hot and I had my favourite canoeing partner, my wife. There were a few small rapids between Glen Morris and Paris and we didn’t have too many problems navigating these minor obstacles. Just after Paris the water got a bit trickier, becoming quite shallow at times and avoiding rocks became a bit more difficult. We grazed a few rocks with our new canoe and vowed that we’d try to take it easy on our bright yellow wedding gift.

Through cooperation and communication we made it through the trickier sections between Paris and Brantford. It was a good lesson in marital communication. The Grand River doesn’t get a lot of respect in terms of its canoeing difficulty, but when you’re trying to take it easy on a new canoe with generally low water levels there’s some fun added challenges. The last time I canoed the Paris to Brantford sections was at least 10 years ago, when I was in my mid-teens. If you’ve done the Cambridge to Paris route too many times, I’d highly recommend this stretch of river. The rapids are more frequent than other sections of the Grand and the water level is generally decent, since the Nith River meets the Grand after the dam in Paris adding a significant input of water. Wildlife was also plentiful. We saw many hawks, herons, and ducks while paddling along. We marveled at the grace and length of the herons when they flew over us, noting their similarity to a jet plane with their feet straight out the back for added aerodynamics. Our departure time was 10:30am from Glen Morris, we arrived for lunch in Paris a bit after 12:00noon, headed out around 1:00pm and arrived at 4:00pm at Wilkes Dam in Brantford. You can follow our route by clicking on the image below.

The only awkward thing about canoeing a river is how to get back to your vehicle. Usually people arrange a shuttle or go with a group and have a vehicle or two waiting at the take-out point. Ever since I was young my dad came up with a solution for when you have only 1 vehicle, are too cheap for a shuttle and too doubtful to hitchhike. The solution was the bike! Throw the bike in the canoe, paddle downstream, hop on the bike, ride back to the car, pick up the car, drive back to canoe and head home. Sound confusing? It’s really not very confusing and it’s a lot of fun if canoeing and cycling are some of your favourite activities. Yes, you get some funny looks for having a bike in a canoe, but you’re the one laughing when they have to pay for a shuttle. It’s great fun, though tiring, and I’ve never heard of anyone else doing it.

Tepee Lake Canoe Expedition ’05

This past weekend myself and 11 other guys had a crazy fun time in Algonquin Park. We put in at Canoe Lake, looped around Joe Lake to the east, up into Littledoe and back down through Tepee Lake and back to Canoe Lake. I’ve posted some great pictures that Daniel Morden shot while on the trip. Daniel captured many of our more adventureous moments on camera; for instance, Jamie large leech, the old snapping turtle that we fed leeches, gunnel bobbing, our 6 canoe catamaran, deep-fried cake mix with marshmellows..mmmm., a beautiful sunset and plenty more. Check them out by clicking on the link on the left. If you have any stories you’d like to share from the trip just click on the comments button below. Happy paddling!

canoeing with my wife…

what more could I ask for. The other day Darlene and I made our first canoe trip with the bright yellow canoe given to us for our wedding. We portaged it down the street, yup that’s right, straight down a residential street in Kitchener and then right into the Grand River. We left Doon area around 7pm and ended up in Blair about 8:30pm. The sun was setting and Darlene and I were just floating down the river, past the ducks, geese, and golf courses. We both felt that canoeing under the 401 was particularly ironic, due to the dissonance between the high speed traffic above us and the gentle noise of the river. It was a splendid evening, and really what more is there to be happy about in life then to canoe down a river with my beautiful wife. ~ ~ happy paddling!

Canoeing is the life – portaging is the pain

Well I just got back from four wonderful days in Algonquin Park. Myself and seven other guys did a canoe and portage circuit that took us through approximately 30km of paddling and 7.4km of portaging over four days. You can view a map of our route below. This was my first extended trip to Algonquin Park since my dad and I went on a canoe trip when I was still in high school. The trip also brought back great memories of when Darlene and I were engaged in Algonquin Park in May. Some of the stories from this past trip include Mark stalking a chipmunk, me forgetting my lifejacket at the access point, our ‘shortcut’ on day 2, gunnel-bobbing, Adam’s jokes, group stories that went nowhere – oh those frogs and turtles from mars, and lepers! and much more.
Random Quotes from the adventure:
“It’s about the journey, not the destination; except when portaging” Joel W.
“They really did make some weird dolls” Adam F.
“That stinks so bad it’s coming through my sleeping bag shell.” Mark S.
“Let’s think about this for a moment” Richard J.