Braiding Rivers

16/09/2024

08/09/2024

Goodbye niibin/summer, you were beautiful🌊

As always, as always, as always…chi miigwech Madoueskasipi for being. Chi miigwech to the Omàmìwininì, the downriver people of this land.

Chi miigwech to nibi — always on her way to becoming — to Source Lake, where the Madawaska first becomes, and to Kitchisipi where she becomes something more.

Chi miigwech to the rain that feeds the rivers, to all watersheds who feed us and to those who allow themselves to be spirit-fed by these places.

Thank you to the guides who flow into Braiding Rivers each season, helping us become something greater and more collectivized than we were before.

Thank you to those who travelled with us, who trusted us before they knew us and shared their experiences of being human with us for a short window.

Thank you to our teachers and mentors who shared wisdom and perspective,
the farmers who grew our food,
the artists who created our gifts,
the fossils who fuelled our shuttles,
the friends that hyped the s**t out of us,
the lovers that (literally) washed our trip dishes,
the families who stood behind us

and all our well ancestors who walk with us wherever we go.

Now we call ourselves home after summer’s journey to cultivate contentment with what is and to be carried peacefully into the dreaming season once more.

📸: and

26/06/2024

Do you need a hand to join us on the river this summer? We are accepting applications for our July 12th-15th Women+ With the River trip in a few weeks.

This 4-day whitewater canoe trip takes us on a journey with our home river — the Madawaska. In the heart of Algonquin territory, this whitewater gem holds a special place in many whitewater paddlers hearts for being a very “friendly” river to learn and grow with.

We’ll begin our journey in Palmer Rapids and end at Buck Bay, travelling through the Lower Madawaska Provincial Park along the way. The Madawaska features class I-II+ rapids, with portage trails around any and all of them. We are in love with this river!

If you feel called to join us, apply for The Ripple Effect Bursary at the link in our bio👆

03/06/2024

FAQ: Am I fit enough to join for a trip??

We get this question allll the time. Our trips require us to be active in a variety of ways. We will be paddling in canoes, carrying our equipment around rapids we choose not to run, setting up and taking down tents, swimming and hiking.

While we can’t change the active nature of a canoe trip (and mostly we love it!), we do take lots of breaks to bask in the sun, take in the views, stretch out our bodies and take stock of what the group needs.

It is supremely important to us that our trips are not focused around comparison of this body to that body or this accomplishment to that one; we just wanna celebrate YOUR victories and YOUR abilities.

27/05/2024

Looking for a soulful and exciting summer trip? Are you looking to build your capacity for travelling with the Land? Check out our list of trips coming up for summer 2024👇

🌊Babes In Boats (June 29-July 1) - long-weekend whitewater workshop

🌊Women+ With the Water (July 12-15) - 4-day gentle moving water canoe trip through the Lower Madawaska Provincial Park to Griffith, ON

🌊Meet the River (July 12-15) - 4-day class II whitewater canoe trip from Palmer Rapids through the Lower Madawaska Provincial Park

Check out the link in our bio👆
🌊Women+ With the Water (July 19-22)- 4-day flatwater trip in the Quetico Provincial Park

🌊Joy and Release: BIPOC Presence On the Water (Aug 2-5) - 4-day flatwater trip in Algonquin Park

19/05/2024

Braiding Rivers is proud to offer the most up-to-date wilderness medical curriculum through this June!

We’re currently offering wilderness medical courses , so join us for a Wilderness Advanced First Aid course June 3-6, 2024 and a Wilderness First Responder Recert/Bridge June 8-11.

These courses are for@folks who recreate or work in areas that may be difficult to access int eh case of a medical emergency. You’d be surprised at how quickly your favourite backpacking/paddling/surfing/skiing/climbing/biking spot becomes a backcountry emergency, so feel prepared with one of these courses.

Plus, the location and food is🤌For more deets, click@the link in our bio 👆

17/05/2024

Meet the guides🤍 Say hey to Taylor!

We’re so grateful that is joining us for her second year with BR.

“Hi everyone, I’m Taylor Farquhar (she/her).

I grew up in Southern Ontario where a handful of years ago I was drawn to this area for the opportunity to teach outdoor education and learn about this amazing thing called whitewater canoeing. Since then, I have fallen in love with the Madawaska River and it’s valley and now am a caretaker of a little slice of land in the unceded Algonquin territory where I live and play.

I started off my whitewater canoeing adventures by taking youth down river, however as I have grown and changed, so have the people I venture down the river with. I truly love teaching and connecting adults to our beautiful Madawaska River and their new and/or improved skills and look forward to doing so with you as well.”

You can catch Taylor on the Women+ With the River: 4-Day Madawaska Whitewater🤍

06/05/2024

Meet the guides! Say hey to Oona🤍

“Perpetually active and engaged — personal growth, creating, and community are at the center of Oona.
Oona is Red River Métis with a blend of mixed European settler and Sami ancestry. Being raised outside Indigenous communities, Oona is now actively reclaiming their Indigenous roots. Oona doesn’t speak on behalf of any of these communities and can only speak for themselves. Oona’s deep love for the land grew from a childhood immersed in the vastness of the prairies, where being on land and exploring were integral parts of their upbringing. As they embark on guiding work, Oona recognizes they have much to learn.

While this may not be obvious at first, Oona is oral deaf and neurodivergent. They won’t sit with your feelings, but they will walk with you.

Still figuring out their place in the world Oona has been attending Toronto Metropolitan University and working as a youth mentor. Loving to connect with the world through activity they practice capoeira and water polo.

Join Oona on an adventure to step outside your comfort zone and push your limits. They’ll be by your side every step of the way – and if you want to, ask about their art.”

24/04/2024

Swag 2024🤍

Look how happy good swag makes you feel! Shop easier knowing we are committed to working with local, small batch and/or sustainable sources to bring you swag we love. We think you’ll love our swag too, like the Loft Coat, the Modern Melton and the recycled cashmere toque from , with a restock of a fan fave, mugs!

100% of our profits go into The Ripple Effect Bursary AND until May, 15% of our swag profit will go towards the fundraiser to keep this hub along the banks of the Madawaska river and within our community.

22/04/2024

Meet the guides! Say hey to Mina🤍

Mina Etezadi (she/her) is a racialized, cis-gendered, q***r settler who grew up in Tiohti`ake/Montreal and now lives in Tkaronto/Toronto. She spends her working days trying to create a more equitable Ontario Public Service as Senior Manager, Centre of Excellence for Human Rights and Employee Experience, Treasury Board Secretariat.

As a child to immigrant parents from Iran, she is on a lifelong journey to connect with, heal and understand the magic in her own lineage while living, working and playing on lands that would have been foreign to her ancestors. She finds it easiest to be her truest self in the woods, by water, on her bicycle and moon gazing. She looks forward to sharing her love of canoeing and is committed to building a sense of community that honours the gifts of the land and waters through reciprocity.

We are so grateful Mina will be co-leading Joy and Release: BIPOC Presence On the Water, Aug 2-5 in Algonquin Park!

09/04/2024

Meet the guides! Say hey to kumari!

kumari (they|them) grew up learning to paddle alongside their family and have been supporting other q***r and trans people of colour in connecting with land since then - whether it be planting gardens, walking forests or paddling on the water.

They are an artist, facilitator, food maker and consultant who embraces their multitudes. They are based in tkaronto, with roots in many places. A mixed maker of many things they lean into creativity and curiosity towards collective transformation and healing. kumari is interested in engaging people in unique and creative ways through embodied agency, storytelling and food through a healing, trauma informed framework. Whether holding space, participating, sharing or guiding, they aspire to shape processes with trust, access, joy and play.

kumari is slowly unfurling from a period of deep healing alongside playing, foraging and learning about liberation in the forest.

We are so grateful will be co-leading the Joy and Release trip, Aug 2-5 in Algonquin Park🤍

19/03/2024

A love note to manoomin from , one of our co-founders and fellow water woman✨

“If there is a better example of a
healthy relationship
than
the relationship between
manoomin and Anishinaabeg,
I do not know it.

Long-term and devoted
- 10,000 years and then some
this relationship is renewed every fall, as harvesters
are intimately engulfed by the thick mat of
manoomin,
canoes gently parting the plants, gratefully
accepting the seeds that fall into laps
hair
and mouths.

In this relationship,
one’s flourishing nurtures another’s
The more that we harvest manoomin,
The more manoomin grows.
The more that manoomin grows,
The more we flourish.

As manoomin expanded northwest along the Great
Lakes,
the Anishinaabe followed
Seeding and leading each other.
It is not a subtractive relationship,
it is not rooted in scarcitv.

Harvesters do not “receive less” when muskrat,
ducks, fish, geese, and insects feed,
hide,
and nest in manoomin.
Everyone receives more, as these relations too
sustain and strengthen us.
This relationship can support an entire community.
An entire ecosystem.

I wonder why some people despise manoomin.
They say it is because it gets in the way of their
boats. They say it is “taking over”
“their” peaceful
lake. They say it is to
“protect” their cottages. They
say it is to’
“save” the lake.
I pity them. Their relationship with the lake is
panicked, gripping, and fearful, only affirmed by
state sanctioned legal frameworks and rising
property values.

I am so grateful to have had my hands in manoomin
so I can learn from an example which is opposite to
that.
May I be in such relations with everyone in my life.
Where my flourishing does not subtract from yours,
but is part of yours.
Where your flourishing nourishes mine, and mine, yours.”

Chi miigwech for your words, Keira 🌾

08/02/2024

A sweet, meditative reflection on the teaching of water, in all her forms by one of our co-founders, 🤍

The Land will always be the greatest teacher.

“Today while out sitting in a pile of fluffy snow after the storm, I marvelled at the different ways water can take form.

Here in Montreal, we were greeted with about a foot of the most delightful packing snow. I stood above a creek dropping snowballs into the water, watching them slowly be molded and melted by the current.

I found myself picturing each water molecule and the journey it has been on, only to arrive with me in this moment. I was transported into a daydream akin to an episode of Magic School bus, my body shrinking down to the size of a water molecule, going on the journey too.

While following the droplet, I pictured it at one point flowing through a narrow section below Richard rapids (aka Z rapid) on the Dumoine. I found myself wondering at, and welcoming, the idea that perhaps somewhere in these frozen layers of snow was a molecule of water who had been with me at one point on the river.

How beautiful to be reunited again —
in a completely different context —
both of us shaped and weathered by our travels
since seeing each other last.

My water droplet friend never resisted this change, but allowed the forces acting on her to arrive in this moment.

I think I’ll trust that I too will end up where I need to be.”

What has your relationship with water taught you? Drop a comment 👇

📸:

19/01/2024

An intimate share from co-founder on what it can be like as a woman leading in outdoors spaces. This was ONE of the catalysts for the creation of Braiding Rivers — a need for spaces where these conversations could happen in safer spaces and become the seed for (dare we say) a revolution of thought.

*context: Rachel is a cis-gendered, straight white settler, responding to a request for her account of sexism experienced in a classroom setting of mostly cis-het white men.*

“So much of the general experience of being in that class comes from moments that accumulated over time…all of the incidences are so small — microaggressions — that they can be explained away or understood within their context, e.g. ‘that person probably has stuff going on at home,’ ‘they’re probably stressed about their upcoming test.’

The issue is that as a female instructor, I deal with this kind of stuff all the time and what seems to be even more harmful is the expectation that I will, in fact, just deal with it. I will let it slide off my back, I will soften, understand, make accommodations, not make it a big deal, be chill. And when I don’t, I will be reminded... I’m ‘too sassy.’

And because I love teaching…these moments become an unpaid aspect of my job description. I think about this a lot, both because it directly impacts me as a female surviving the patriarchy, but more so because…I see the ways this kind of [violent, sexist thinking] particularly impacts women that I mentor, and I see the ways that it sideswiped the women before me…

It is so paramount that everyone on the gender spectrum unpacks the ways in which we have internalized that the role of a ‘woman’ is one of service — to give their time, energy, kindness, empathy, body, mind, stories…so that we can identify all the ways in which we perpetuate patriarchal violence.”

Drop a comment below if you can relate👇

27/12/2023

Ever wonder about how we spend our time with the rivers we know and love✨🤍🌊

Slide1. fishing on the Ekonakwasi Sipi (Dumoine River)

Slide 2. teaching participants how to filet a fish

Slide 3. giving a lift ✈️

Slide 4. leading a campsite beach yoga class

Slide 5. and enjoying warm summer water swimming with Ekonakwasi Sipi