Given all this great weather, it'd be a shame not to get on the Grand River and do some canoeing. On Saturday Darlene and I set aside everything else and spent the day on the river. Instead of doing the standard Cambridge to Paris trip, which I've done countless times, we started our trip in Glen Morris and ended in Brantford. The weather was beautiful, sunny but not too hot and I had my favourite canoeing partner, my wife. There were a few small rapids between Glen Morris and Paris and we didn't have too many problems navigating these minor obstacles. Just after Paris the water got a bit trickier, becoming quite shallow at times and avoiding rocks became a bit more difficult. We grazed a few rocks with our new canoe and vowed that we'd try to take it easy on our bright yellow wedding gift.

Through cooperation and communication we made it through the trickier sections between Paris and Brantford. It was a good lesson in marital communication. The Grand River doesn't get a lot of respect in terms of its canoeing difficulty, but when you're trying to take it easy on a new canoe with generally low water levels there's some fun added challenges. The last time I canoed the Paris to Brantford sections was at least 10 years ago, when I was in my mid-teens. If you've done the Cambridge to Paris route too many times, I'd highly recommend this stretch of river. The rapids are more frequent than other sections of the Grand and the water level is generally decent, since the Nith River meets the Grand after the dam in Paris adding a significant input of water. Wildlife was also plentiful. We saw many hawks, herons, and ducks while paddling along. We marveled at the grace and length of the herons when they flew over us, noting their similarity to a jet plane with their feet straight out the back for added aerodynamics. Our departure time was 10:30am from Glen Morris, we arrived for lunch in Paris a bit after 12:00noon, headed out around 1:00pm and arrived at 4:00pm at Wilkes Dam in Brantford. You can follow our route by clicking on the image below.

The only awkward thing about canoeing a river is how to get back to your vehicle. Usually people arrange a shuttle or go with a group and have a vehicle or two waiting at the take-out point. Ever since I was young my dad came up with a solution for when you have only 1 vehicle, are too cheap for a shuttle and too doubtful to hitchhike. The solution was the bike! Throw the bike in the canoe, paddle downstream, hop on the bike, ride back to the car, pick up the car, drive back to canoe and head home. Sound confusing? It's really not very confusing and it's a lot of fun if canoeing and cycling are some of your favourite activities. Yes, you get some funny looks for having a bike in a canoe, but you're the one laughing when they have to pay for a shuttle. It's great fun, though tiring, and I've never heard of anyone else doing it.