Paddler's Guide to Happy Camping

Kevin, your devoted cleanup partner, Nancy, here.

Congratulations on a superb job!!!!! I only wish I could have been there with you guys this year to help out.

As Kevin mentioned, everyone should check out those websites, and if you participated in a cleanup trip of your own, post a log here - we'd love to hear it!

All four countries have done a phenomenal job and we're still getting lots of results coming in. It's truly a learning experience to discover just how different each country's garbage compares.

I can't wait for the best part (except the knowledge that it's a whole lot cleaner out there now), that being the part where Kevin and I get to give away prizes, such as a Nova Craft PAL canoe!!

Thanks Kevin, for your never-ending support and encouragement; this cause would not be where it is today without you. You're the best!!

Greetings Kevin & Nancy. As you know this past saturday Algonquin Outfiters and The Wolf Den Bunk House (Ben & Robin) teamed up once again to help with the Great Wilderness Clean up. It was a huge success for us again, on many fronts.
• We had some great people turn out to help with the park clean up.
• Everyone had a fantastic time doing something very positive.
• My wife and I had many park visitors stop to ask us what we were doing and it was very well received by them. Many asked if they could help, and proceeded to help us for a short time pick up trash and place it in our bags. Others asked if they to could take a bag on their hike and retrieve more garbage from the park.
• Although the picking were slimmer than last year (again a positive sign, there's less garbage out there!) we still managed to work very hard and retrieve a large number of bags and objects from Algonquin Park. (Concrete filled tire, rusty tape measure, the skid plate from a truck gas tank, etc)

<a href="http://s251.photobucket.com/albums/gg299/AlgonquinOutfitters/?action=view&current=DSC_2712.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg299/AlgonquinOutfitters/DSC_2712.jpg" border="0" alt="Ben &amp; Robin from the Wolf Den,Randy Mitson"></a>

Hey Kevin,

What a great success this year's clean-up has been! Way to go Nancy!!

For those who don't know me, my name is Mike and this was my first year pitching in for the clean-up. My girlfriend (Debbie) and I formed our team "lost canoe crew" and joined forces with Kevin Callan's team "kawartha brigade". With 6 people strong, we hit the Serpintine Lake loop and packed out a whopping 14 bags of garbage and other metal junk which Deb decided we should separate and recycle all that we could. Way to go Deb!!

A great time had by all and what beautiful weather we had.

Nancy, I'm signing myself up for next year's "Great Wilderness Clean-Up", 2009
Kevin, I was a pleasure to paddle and clean up the route with you.

Let's all practice better clean camping and pitch in all year round to keep the portages, camp sites and lake clean, for us, the next group and our kids to explore.

The numbers are in for the Wolf Pack Group.

Looks like we had over 30 people come out to help clean up (along with a few park visitors who also pitched in for the day when they saw us picking up trash)

23 bags of recycleables were removed from the park, 26 bags of garbage (total 49 Bags) plus many larger items, a tire, a truck gas tank skid plate, chunks of scrap metal and wood, etc.

See our blog for a posting on our results soon: http:///www.ao-sales.blogspot.com

Anyone know how/where to sign up for the next time?

Looks like it's this: http://www.wildernesscleanup.com/

I hadn't realized it's Kevin's own initiative. Well done, dude!
It's awful that 30 people can find 50 bags of garbage and recyclables to pack out, but awesome that there were 30 people who did it. I'll be looking for a group to join next time around. You'll post something here when it comes around, I hope?

To sign up for next May's event, just give me, Nancy, a shout at wildernesscleanup@rogers.com early next spring (March or April) to register your volunteer cleanup group. Please visit us at www.wildernesscleanup.com

I hope Kevin and I see you there!

Together we ARE making a REAL difference!

The results continue to come in. Stay tuned...