Looking for a fun and unique team-building event in Manitoba?
Join the Manitoba Camping Association for the 1st Annual Great Manitoba Portage event in support of the Sunshine Fund. Qualico is the presenting sponsor and the MCA is thrilled to have their support.
Proceeds of this event will support the Sunshine Fund to help give more underprivileged children the opportunity to experience camp. Each year kids are turned away due to a lack of funds which is a difficult message to give to families who really are in need of the assistance.
The event is intended to be fun and unique, as such all activities incorporate a camp and canoe portage like flavour – three legged race challenges with weighted backpacks, land challenges involving water, portaging a canoe, and wilderness first aid will all be components of the race. The portage section will be the most challenging as it is a 1km loop over the pedestrian bridge at the Forks (Esplanade Riel).
Volunteers are still needed so if you would like to help out, please let Liz Kovach (MCA Executive Director) know.
Event Specifics
- Registration is open @ http://www.events.runningroom.com/site/?raceId=10595
- Team members are required to register individually however are asked to provide their team name, registration is $50.00 per person.
- For all participants that raise $150.00, we will return your registration fee, or provide you with a tax receipt if you choose to donate it to the Sunshine Fund.
- Online pledges can be collected by sending out this link once you have registered, the Running Room will provide tax receipts on our behalf to donors that give through the Pledge an Athlete, or Give to Charity option. http://www.giving.runningroom.com/hm/
Event Course
- Teams will self-split into pairs to carry through various activities/obstacles
- The final two-some will be portage the canoe for a 1 km loop over the esplanade riel and back
- A canoe paddle is the official “baton” and consistent with relay race style, must be carried at all times and passed off at each exchange
- Once the portage section is completed, the teams will be required to complete a Wilderness First Aid challenge that will bring them to the finish line as a group!
Logistic Info
- Event date: Saturday, May 24th
- Location: The Forks Festival Park and Scotiabank Stage Area
- Registration open: 7:30am
- Canoe lifting orientation starts at: 8am
- Live on Location broadcast with Virgin 103.1 & Ace Burpee from 9-1
- Event start time: 9am
- Awards Ceremony: noon
- Wrap-up 1pm
Prizes will be Awarded
- Top Fundraising Camp
- Top Fundraising Team (non-corporate)
- Top Fundraising Corporate
- Team that displays the most team spirit!
Research News
During the 2013 summer season, some Canadian camps will be piloting a self-evaluation study on how summer camp helps to develop resilience in children. The pilot has been designed by Dr. Michael Ungar, a Killam Professor of Social Work at Dalhousie University where he co-directs the Resilience Research Centre.
On Tuesday, April 16 (7:00 – 9:00 pm), Dr. Ungar is speaking in Toronto. Dr. Ungar will discuss ways to offer children and teenagers the right amount of risk and responsibility so that they can grow up to be competent, caring contributors to their families, schools, and communities.
All proceeds will be donated to help send children, youth and mothers affected by poverty to Lake Scugog Camp.
For more information on Dr. Ungar’s speaking event, or to get tickets, please click here.
“The Inconvient Indian” – By Thomas King
Thomas King’s humorous, insightful and at times disturbing book, The Inconvient Indian, defines “Dead Indians” as, “the stereotypes and clichés that North America has conjured up out of experience and out of its collective imaginings and fears…war bonnets, beaded shirts, fringed deerskin dresses, loincloths, headbands, feathered lances, tomahawks, moccasins, face paint and bone chokers.”
King continues, “When we dance, when we sing at the drum, when we perform ceremonies, we are not doing it for North America’s entertainment …we [Live Indians] do these things to remind ourselves of who we are, to remind ourselves of where we come from, and to remind ourselves of our relationship with the earth…Land has always been a defining element of Aboriginal culture. It provides water, air, shelter, and food. Land participates in the ceremonies and songs. And land is home…A great many Native people have a long-standing relationship with the natural world. But that relationship is equally available to non-Natives.” We don’t need to throw out the trappings, but this is the lesson we need to share with our campers.
King’s book helps us to understand and challenges us to confront the uncomfortable and urgent reality of native peoples today.
For those in the Toronto area, Kids in Camp Charity is hosting a fundraising event on Tuesday April 9, 2013. After dinner, The Hon. Dr. Carolyn Bennett, P.C., M.D., will introduce Steve Paikin of TVO in conversation with Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux, Ph.D., Vice Provost (Aboriginal Initiatives) at Lakehead University about “Sharing Our Canadian Roots.”
