History paddled into Rainy River last week

By Ken Johnston
Editor

History visited Rainy River last Wednesday when the David Thompson Brigade made a stop on its voyage to recreate the famous cartographer’s journey to map this region and most of western Canada.
The idea was hatched by Andy Korsos in 2003, a cartographer from western Canada. Always a fan of Thompson, Korsos pitched the idea of retracing the route to Ted Bentley a builder of super computers, and Bentley who has paddled canoes for more than 40 years. He had seen a similar idea done in 1967 for Canada’s centennial and was immediately ready to hit the trail with the brigade.
At the beginning of the route in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, they had 17 canoes and 210 paddlers. The canoes are 27 feet long replicas of the original fur trader boats. Each has 6-8 paddlers per shift. All along the route paddlers have joined and left the Brigade. On average they have 110-115 paddlers per day. They do crew changes throughout the day to keep the paddlers fresh and make as many kilometres as possible per day.
There will be 250 different paddlers by the time the adventure is done on July 12th in Thunder Bay. The youngest participant is 16 and the oldest joined them in Fort Frances over the weekend at 83 years of age.
They have had people from all over Canada and as far away as Scotland and Australia.
They arrived in Rainy River Wednesday afternoon in time to catch the grade school kids on their last day. Riverview students learned about David Thompson from Mark Lund, a spokesperson for the brigade. They then participated in kids games organized by Rec. Director Meghan Shanks.
At 4 p.m. all the canoes paddled into the marina where they fired a musket to attract attention on shore. If a shot was returned from shore, which it was in Rainy River, they knew it was a friendly place to land.
Mayor Deb Ewald gave them permission to come ashore where they mingled with the public.
Later in the evening there as a pig roast for the visitors, entertainment by Rodney Brown and the Nite Hawks.
Early Thursday morning they enjoyed a breakfast at the Legion and then headed upstream towards Emo and then Fort Frances on Friday.
Korsos said that the main reason for doing the trip was to raise awareness about David Thompson. “He should be recognized as the greatest cartographer in Canada and perhaps even the world. Even MacKenzie said he did in four months what he couldn’t in two years.”
They also had three goals for the trip:
1. Promoting David Thompson’s Legacy
2. Reminding People of the importance of waterways
3. Promoting Canoeing as a recreation
“It is really great to see Rainy River has done so much with its waterway,” said Bentley.