Couchsurfing Interview on CBC Radio Thunder Bay

Posted on March 27, 2010 by zkruz

For those who haven’t heard about Couchsurfing, you should definitely take a gander at the website. I encourage people from all walks of life to sign up and be a part of the fantastic network and community of like-minded travelers who all share common ground and offer unique perspectives on life.

Please visit www.couchsurfing.org to learn more.

For the past two weeks I have hosted Serena Black from Quesnel, British Columbia, Canada. She came here from Carlton University in Ottawa, Ontario as a journalism student on an internship with CBC Radio in Thunder Bay, Ontario. She explained this to me in her couch request to me and how she needed a place to stay during this time and didn’t want to stay in a hotel/hostel. I thought it would be great to meet her and learn more about who she is and her involvement with CBC Radio. It was definitely one of the longer periods of time i have hosted but I showed Serena around a few different places and we both had a lot of work to do so it worked out well that we could both get some work done. During her internship she had the opportunity to be involved with and pitch some story ideas.

One of these developed into a story on Couchsurfing and she interviewed myself and some couchsurfers (Alex & Kacie) who drove all the way up from Texas just to experience Thunder Bay.

The following is an interview i recorded on my garage band program at 7:45am Thursday March 25th, 2010 on the Great Northwest morning show on CBC Radio Thunder Bay. Lisa Laco interviews Serena Black.

Click here for a link to the interview (If link doesn’t work search CBC Thunder Bay on http://www.archive.org)

Early Spring Swell on the Big Lake

Posted on March 22, 2010 by zkruz

First day of the sea kayaking season occurred today off the township of Silver Islet on Lake Superior. I woke up a little bit hesitant looking out the window to slightly overcast skies and a current temperature of 0 degrees celsius. The marine forecast was 20knots diminishing to 15 in the afternoon. So i knew we would be in for a bit of wind and swell. Also the weather network said it was only suppose to be a high of 9 degrees celsius. All these factors did not make me particularly over-motivated or excited to get out as i usually would be to paddle on Lake Superior. My friend Karina’s determination and the fact that I had my exceptionally kind and awesome friend Darrell’s truck and use of his boats for the weekend, i thought we’d better get out.

When we first arrived in Silver Islet and we saw the continuous white caps and spray coming off the marina dock. We got out of the truck and felt the breeze and how cold it was. My couchsurfer Serena came out with us but didn’t want to paddle so we said farewell to her as she hiked out to the sea lion to get some reading done. Instantaniously the sun came out and we were a whole lot more excited about getting out there… even if it was a bit windy. We scouted around and saw that most of the bay wasn’t too bad so we geared up in our neoprene, boots, gloves and wetsuits and other warm and water-protective layers and were off. It is very important to have the right skill level, experience and equipment to venture on the lake, especially this time of year.

Surprisingly, I believe this was the earliest in the season i had been out on Lake Superior. The sun felt so incredibly nice but was the water every COLD!

We had to continuously take our neoprene gloves off to warm our hands and get the feeling back in them. It was a similar feeling to the so called “screeming barfy’s” you get when ice-climbing, the pain that is sometimes extreme enough to make you barf. In this case it definitely was nowhere near that bad.

We paddled completely around the bay in the more sheltered area before venturing off into some bigger swell in the exposed waters.

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Although it doesn’t look it, there was a good 1.5-2 meter swell out there once beyond the shelter of the small islands. There were lots of breaking waves… I noticed some that would have been nice to surf but decided to lay low since the water was so freakin cold and am recently getting over a minor shoulder injury. Got too many great trips in the season to come, just not worth risking further damage to my shoulder.

As we paddled in our friend Andy and another guy who was the son of the owner of Thunder Country Diving were all geared up in extremely thick neoprene to go out for a dive.

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Silver Islet is a great little community, unfortunately the store was closed as it is a mostly seasonally operated May through September. They serve amazing corn chowder and biscuits, a great treat for anyone who makes the trip out here. Silver Islet is also home to what was once the richest silver mine in the world! Click here for a historical time-line.

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All in all we had a great day and look forward to the many more paddling adventures to come!

Taking full advantage of a beautiful day in Northwestern Ontario!

Posted on March 16, 2010 by zkruz

Yesterday I woke up around 8am and got an early start to the day as i watched the sunrise over the sleeping giant on Lake Superior out my apartment window. I sat down at my computer and started to get organized for the day as i continually glanced out at the rising sun. I thought ‘Damn it’s really going to be a nice day!’ I should do something outside. Shortly after I noticed a post on facebook from some of my friends who were going out climbing at Pass Lake, 40mins east of Thunder Bay. I decided that I simply had to go and got in touch with them ASAP and made it out. They were not leaving until 11am and it was 8am so this motivated me to hammer out a few solid hours of work in on the guidebook before enjoying the glorious +16 weather.

The beautiful south facing sandstone bluffs on the Sibley Penninsula are quite a popular climbing destination for people in the northwestern ontario region. The cliffs at Pass Lake are part of a formation of sedimentary rocks known as the Sibley Group that was deposited 1.5 to 1.3 billion years ago. This group extends from Lake Superior to Lake Nipigon and is is a red bed sequence preserved in a fault-bounded basin. The sandstone at this particular formation at Pass Lake is primarly composed of quartz sand grains with some feldspar and rock fragments. It is a unique rock to climb as most of northwestern ontario is composed of diabase cliffs of volcanic origin.

There is such a vast variety of climbing routes at Pass Lake, Lots of bolts for variety of sport leads, good places to top rope, and some challenging trad routes.

It was my first time climbing here and second time out this season. I found the rock quite challenging, some tough overhanging moves and tricky holds makes this place a favorite for experiences climbers. I attempted to lead an easier climb but chickened out since i still need to climb a few times to get myself in climbing shape and conditioned to confidently climb above the rope again. All in all it was a fantastic day and i can’t wait to get out more!