La Loche Youth To Try Traditional Water Travel

La Loche Youth To Try Traditional Water Travel

Tuesday, May 31, 2011 at 14:33

 

 

It could be a summer to remember for some students in La Loche.

 

A project is underway to have students at the community’s high school build two traditional Metis skiffs, and then taken them on a riverboat tour of northwest Saskatchewan.

 

Leonard Montgrand is organizing the trip.

 

Montgrand says the skiffs will be wide, flat-bottomed boats measuring 18 feet in length.

 

He explains they were used traditionally by fishers and trappers due to their ability to handle high waves.

 

Montgrand plans to take as many as 20 youth along on the tour, which he is hoping gets started in July.

 

He says the purpose of the trip is to give the children a better sense of how vital the waterways were to people in the area.

 

Montgrand says support boats will follow the skiffs.

 

Elders will also be along to teach the kids the history and traditional ways of the area.

 

Montgrand says they will depart from La Loche to places like Big Buffalo Lake and Clear Lake, before entering the Churchill River system with stops in Ile a’la Crosse and Patuanak.