I got in to help Jeff with some work this week, and he brought me up to date on some new developments and situations that he gets to 'look forward' to dealing with. One of these is the fact that the supplier of his aluminum gunwales went bankrupt in November, and now he has to find a new supplier. Fortunately, of the three gunwales he uses, he has enough stock to build about seventy boats or more, but he is running low on the light profile gunwales for our superlight kevlar, carbon, and helium canoes.
The dies to produce each gunwale cost roughly $3000 each, and even though he pays for them to be made, he never actually owns or possesses them, and now they are sitting in a closed factory in London, in bankrupty proceedings, and shut down by the CAW. So not much to be done except bite the bullet and go to a new supplier, pony up the cash, and get the 'dies' rolling again.
I told Jeff I would do a bit of investigating, to see if I could find out if the dies could be bought off the bankrupt company, and provided to the new manufacturer, so as to save the expense of another ten grand, as no one other than us has any use for them. In starting my research, I found a couple of little tidbits of information, which once again pissed me off, and if there is one thing sure to do that, it is the 'business practices' (I use the term loosely) of the People's Republic of China.
Recently the
Canada Border Services Agency issued a report concerning the
Dumping of aluminum extrusions exported from the People's Republic of China. Essentially, virtually all the Chinese exporters of aluminum extrusions were found to be dumping (selling significantly below the actual cost of production) their product on the Canadian Market. Unfortunately, this is typical business practice for the Chinese, as there is probably nothing that you can buy that at one point or another has been dumped into our Country, from bicycles to toasters, to shoes and underwear, and now aluminum extrusions!
To keep it brief, China is a country rife with corruption, which endorses unethical and immoral business practices, supports widespread industrial espionage, illegally subsidizes and dumps goods on other countries, unfairly manipulates its own currency (not to mention supports the murder of its own citezens to supply demand for organ transplants to wealthy westerners). And they even help put Canadian manufacturers of top quality aluminum gunwales out of business.
If you have a choice, buy Canadian; If you can't do that, buy North American; If that is impossible, buy from the EU; failing that, try the emerging Eastern European nations, South America, the Caribbean, Pacific Rim countries like Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia; and finally, if you can't get what you want made anywhere else in the world, buy Chinese.
By the time we loaded up and got in the water (and I returned to the van for my camera!) they were also getting ready to go. What then followed was a low speed canoe chase, which Rudi and I eventually lost! The first picture is a view looking East, downstream toward the canyon, with the couple who just passed us about fifty yards ahead.
Here the canyon walls rise about 200 feet, but are well back from the river, and are simply steep, tree covered slopes. This small river section is about 1km long, and empties into Brigham lake, which is quite small, the far end of which is the first portage. The second photograph is a view looking back to the West, and Brigham Lake, where we had just landed at the take out for the first portage. The portage was only a hundred metres, and led us past some rapids, into a very small lake, which we crossed to find the takeout for the second portage. We paddled across the front of the outlet of this little lake, taking a peek over the steep set of rapids that led to Brigham falls.
This portage was 440m in length, and It was a fair bit of effort raising the canoe, as it was the Fibreglass Prospector, and weighed just under 60lbs. The third photograph was taken with the canoe on my shoulders (look carefully at the strange dark part of the top of the photo, it is the inside of the canoe.) and is looking down Brigham chute, again toward the East. After this final portage, it was just some easy flatwater canoeing right into the heart of the Canyon. 
Downstairs there is a small bike repair area, and it was there that I ran into someone I recognized from Waterloo. Randy was one of the employees of Bent's Camera in Uptown Waterloo, and about 7 years ago he moved to a business in Stratford, and after that didn't work out (not his doing, Randy is a great guy!) he and his wife decided to move to the Muskokas, and he started working for Algonquin Outfitters, where he is now the Marketing Manager, and his wife is in charge of Rental Operations.
On monday I phoned Randy, thinking that if they had an available canoe, I would like to take Rudi out for a quick trip down the river and back. He said I was welcome to have one of the rentals for a little trip, which was very much appreciated, as a great way to spend time while we waited for the van to get fixed. We borrowed a kevlar Swift Canoe Algonquin 16, a nice stable boat that liked to hold a line fairly well, similar to the H2O Composites Canadian 16-6. The first photo is leaving the Huntsville 'Harbour', a long linear dock behind part of the downtown. Katherine chatted with the lady seated on the dock by the red canoe, who spends six months a year in Huntsville, and the other six months in the States. Apparently her Grandson is now old enough to take the stern, and she loves being his bow paddler for the trips they take! 
After visiting SlipStream Yokes, Rudi and I headed West from Palmer Rapids on Burnt Bridge Road to the bridge over the Little Mississippi River. From the bridge the Little Mississippi flows
North two kilometres to enter the Conroy Marsh and meet the York River, and South it meanders upstream toward MacArthur Mills on highway 28, about 20 kilometres away. This time we had our H2O Composites Prospector 16 
in fibreglass, a nice boat that turns on a dime compared to the Canadian 16-6. We put in at the boat ramp on the West bank of the river North of the bridge (top photo) then paddled under the bridge, and headed
upstream. Not that there was any particularly noticeable flow, I am guessing the river is pretty much flat for miles in any given direction, until it hits a series of rapids, chutes, or falls. We played leapfrog with a Great Blue Heron, who followed us up the river a way.
