Lindsay Campbell
Four local women have been taking on nature in active and adventurous ways.
Debbie Canfield, Linda Kawulia, Tammy Riordon, and Margaret Sedgwick, referred to by some as the “Reef Point Adventure Girls,” set out on a kayaking trip from Fort Frances to Emo on May 30.
The four have been friends since 2012, when Sedgwick retired as chief librarian of the Fort Frances Public Library and decided to take up golfing.
“When I retired I thought, ‘I want to be active,’ and the first thing I decided was that I wanted to do some golfing,” she explained.
“Tammy was at my retirement party and she indicated that she wanted to go golfing, too.
“Then Debbie, who I knew casually from the library, phoned me up and said, ‘I hear you’re beginning to golf. Can I golf with you?’ and I said, ‘Sure!’
“And then Linda’s son was my viola partner in orchestra and then he asked if his mother could maybe golf with us.”
Kawulia said she thought golfing with the women would be a one-time thing.
But before she knew it, they were doing anything active together—from hiking and snowshoeing to biking and even kayaking.
“The first time I golfed with them, I thought it would be just for that day,” Kawulia remarked.
“But we found out we had similar interests and then everything kind of grew from there.”
Riordon said Canfield is the mastermind behind the group’s adventures.
“She has all these fabulous ideas,” Riordon noted. “She was the one that said, ‘I’d like to kayak from Fort to Emo sometime,’ and then we picked a date that we were all around and we did it.
“But we’re always pretty keen,” she added. “Whenever someone mentions something, we’re in.”
The foursome started their kayaking trek at 11 a.m. from the landing by the water tower.
Little did they know the trip would be a lot longer in distance than they expected.
“We originally thought it was going to be about 20, 21 miles,” said Sedgwick.
“I had lived on the river about 10 miles out of town so I thought I knew the river well enough,” she remarked.
“But my son kept questioning me, saying, ‘Do you know how far Emo really is?’
“And when we got to what we thought was close to Emo, we saw someone standing on their deck and we asked them how far and he said, ‘15 kilometres.’
“And we went, ‘Oh no.’”
Riordon said the route ended up being roughly 48 km long, which took the four of them about nine hours to complete.
“The last few miles were a little more challenging but it was a beautiful sunny day and we made it,” Sedgwick said.
Canfield agreed the scenery they saw along the way made the last few miles a lot easier to complete.
“When we were going down the river, we thought that people would pay to do something like this,” she added.
“I think people should get out and enjoy what’s here in front of them.”
Riordon said she’s just really proud of all of them for doing that 48 kilometres.
“The most we’ve ever done was like five kilometres, out on the bay,” she noted. “Forty-eight is unreal and as soon as we stopped, our arms seized up.
“We had a really hard time pushing ourselves out of our kayaks to get up, but we did it!”
The ladies plan on heading to the Apostle Islands on Lake Superior at the end of July to continue their kayaking adventures.
Sedgwick joked that the 48-km trip was just a warm-up for her.
“I think if someone my age can make it 29 miles down the river, I should be fine in the Apostle Islands,” she laughed.
“I’m 63,” she added. “We’re all proud that we were able to do this, but I’m the most proud of myself because I’m the oldest one of the group.”
The four also have been in the midst of planning a trip to the Grand Canyon, where they plan to hike next summer.
Riordon said the group always is pushing the envelope looking to try new things.
“We haven’t done any of these things before, and we never go back to the same place and do the same thing,” she stressed.
“Somebody asked me, ‘Would you do that kayak trip again?’ I say, ‘No, we did it.’
“There’s a group called ‘Adventures in Good Company’ and we’re talking about perhaps getting in a kayak in Belize,” Riordon added.
“We just keep just wanting to keep planning, and have all these new things to look forward to and all these adventures,” she reasoned.
Canfield said she’s been very fortunate to find this group of women to do all these activities with.
“I just love that I am able to enjoy friendship while I get to exercise,” she remarked.
“These girls are up for anything and they never quit.
“We were saying when we were going down the river that it wasn’t an option to pull out,” Canfield noted.
“A lot of people might say that they want to do this type of thing and then when the time comes, they find a reason not to do it,” she added.
“But not these ladies. I always know that when they say they’re going to be there, they’ll be there.”
