Marathon Canoe Camp 2025
by Paul Buffel

In today’s challenging social and cultural milieu, technology, stress, and demands of modern life are taking a toll on our physical and mental health. As a society, we continue to spend increasing amounts of money on healthcare with a decrease in positive health outcomes.

Some core factors that contribute to a healthy life identified through research studies are:

• healthy diet
• regular movement
• quality sleep
• avoiding addictive behaviours
• managing stress
• stimulating your brain
• finding meaning and purpose
• engaging socially

As a massage therapist, I not only want to stay healthy enough to continue the work I love as I get older, but I want to help support my clients’ health through sharing strategies and approaches that will support their goals. Big Eddy Lodge and the Carrière family have become central to how I put mental and physical health plans into action.

The Cree-Métis Carrière family live on the Saskatchewan River Delta at Big Eddy Lodge, 55 kilometres south of Cumberland House, accessible only by boat in the summer, or by snowmobile, or fat biking, in the winter. Michela owns the adventure guiding company Aski Holistic Adventures and she and Solomon, Renée, and her husband Léo offer wilderness adventures with shared cabin accommodations, home-cooked dinners, and a sauna. Off-grid there is no internet, heat is by wood stoves, they haul water from the river, use outhouses, and hunt, fish, and garden for their food.

The Carrière’s have been paddling all over Canada for generations, from York boats to pro boats. Solomon is a medal-winning Marathon Paddler who leads this Canoe Camp. Joined by friends Bruce and Roxanne Barton of Michigan’s Hog Wild Racing, anyone who has won competitions in Marathon Canoeing has been coached by them, according to Solomon. For the recent Marathon Canoe Camp, there were three days of skills assessment, coaching, practice, and a staged canoe race.

Participants came from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, ages one year old to over seventy. Skills ranged from complete beginners, to one participant leaving Big Eddy for a race in New York State, and a group of young men from Pelican Narrows on their way to the Yukon River Quest. Unfortunately, my paddle partner fell ill right before we were to leave for the camp. I left without a canoe hoping it would all turn out. A family coming from Cross Lake had one paddler who couldn’t come, so one of them joined me and we had a wonderful experience as partners over the weekend. After parking at the meeting spot, we paddled 30 km downstream against a strong headwind to Big Eddy.

Each morning a small group of early birds met in the dining cabin and shared conversation over coffee or tea. Some headed straight for the sauna to begin their day. I had many trips between the sauna and cold waters of the river all weekend. Once everyone was up, we did movement/stretch/yoga for 15 minutes, and walked, ran, or biked the trails for 20 minutes before breakfast. After coaching, practice, or racing, we would eat lunch then rest, or nap, before our afternoon activities. Dinner was at six and most people spent the time just before, or after, in the sauna, sitting around the outdoor-kitchen fire, reading, relaxing, or joining the kids in their games beside the river.

As a group, we shared a passion, not only for canoeing, but for being active outdoors and the love of food. One night a few people picked and cleaned forest fiddle heads to include with dinner. Sharing our summer plans, many of us found we were participating in common activities, and would see each other throughout the summer.

On Saturday night Bruce, Roxanne, and I shared stories of the physical challenges of paddling. We discussed advice they give to those they coach for two of the most common issues for paddlers; back pain and forearm tendonitis. They asked my opinion based on my knowledge as a massage therapist. I shared my thoughts and suggestions that could help not only in treating these issues, but preventing them, through posture, movement awareness, stretches, and fascial rolling. We ended up having an informal discussion with the whole group after dinner with questions and answers. The next day everyone was buzzing with the excitement of new approaches and ideas they could put into practice for the day’s paddling. I was inspired by this professional exchange with Bruce and Roxanne, and how it was so appreciated by the paddlers.

As we left for home, we wished each other great canoe trips, and summer adventures, having felt we’d made lasting friendships with memories made on the land and water over that special weekend. I left feeling a deep sense of gratitude and connection to this place and people.

This was an unforgettable experience. Every moment was filled with connection, laughter, learning, and a deep sense of community. When I reflect on the list of health factors at the beginning of this article, every single one of them was addressed in some way over the weekend. Making the choice to participate in some way daily in these behaviours is vital to our health, individually and collectively.

Research references included from Yale School of Medicine; Longevity Decoded: The Seven Keys to Healthy Aging, the Lancet Journal; Crucial factors affecting longevity, and the National Library of Medicine Pub Med; Impact of Healthy Lifestyle Factors on Life Expectancy and Lifetime Health Care Expenditure: Nationwide Cohort Study.

Paul Buffel RMT, Thai Massage Practitioner and Educator, works within a dynamic clinical practice at the multi-disciplinary Broadway Health Collective in Saskatoon, SK. With over 29 years in practice, he utilizes the Myofascial Cupping Technique™ within his treatments. He is also engaged in matters of regulation through membership with the Council of Licensure, Enforcement, and Regulation (CLEAR), completed the Executive Leadership course for Regulators, and sits on the Saskatchewan College of Massage Therapy Working Group. He brings his experience as past board member and president of the Natural Health Practitioners of Canada (NHPC), and the fun of being a board member of Canada’s first Fat Bike Club, Fatlanders Fat Tire Brigade, to enrich his work within the profession, his teaching, and with clients. To contact him, see the Broadway Health Collective display ad on page 10. Also, see the Aski Holistic Adventures display ad on page 7of the 31.2 July/August issue of the WHOLifE Journal.