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A
Gift from the Wilderness Canoe Association
By: Richard Munn
Earlier this year I attended the Outdoor Adventure Show in
Toronto. I was making the rounds of the exhibitor's booths
and happened upon the display for the Wilderness Canoe
Association. Joining the WCA had been on my list of
things-to-do for some time, so I took that opportunity to sit
down and finally write them a cheque for my membership fee.
One of the benefits of WCA membership is a subscription to
"Nastawgan," the quarterly journal that they publish.
There were a number of back issues for sale at the booth, so I
picked them up at the same time. As I browsed through them
later that day, I began to realize what a valuable resource
Nastawgan is. The journal contains a mix of useful and
interesting information, but most important (in my mind) was the
first-person trip reports submitted by members.
Knowing that the WCA had been around for many years, I began to
think about how much useful information had been recorded on
those pages, shared with the WCA membership and then 'lost' over
the course of time as issues found their way to blue box or
attic. The trip reports and route descriptions would be a
valuable resource if they could be resurrected and made
available to the paddling community.
I contacted Toni Harting (the editor of Nastawgan) to talk about
this issue. Toni and I had a nice chat on the phone, and
he agreed to raise the matter with the WCA board at their fall
meeting. In our discussions, Toni and I had come to the
conclusion that both Nastawgan and this web site had similar
mandates. We are both trying to share information about
wilderness paddling in Canada to as broad an audience as
possible.
The long and short of it is that I have just heard back from
Toni, who has informed me that the WCA board graciously granted
their approval to post information from past issues of Nastawgan
on this web site.
As an added bonus, Toni was kind enough to mail to me a large
box containing a nearly-complete set of back issues for my use.
The journals range from the recent issues nicely bound and
printed on heavy stock to the old "newspaper style"
issues printed in typewriter face on newsprint. As far as
I can determine, there have been 107 issues of Nastawgan
published over the past 27 years - thanks to the generosity of
the WCA and Toni, I am now the proud owner of 74 of those
issues.
As one who lives and breathes the preservation of canoe route
documentation, you can imagine how excited I was to receive this
treasure-trove of information. As I pulled issue after
issue out of the box, my wife Debbie rolled her eyes and said
"I guess I won't be seeing you for the next month!"
She will, but unfortunately my nose will most likely be stuck
into one of those journals.
A huge task remains. Obviously, other than the very recent
issues, nothing is available in computer-readable format.
We are faced with the somewhat daunting job of transcribing many
hundreds of articles so that they can be posted on this site.
This process will begin immediately, but will take some time to
reach completion.
Wilderness paddlers everywhere will benefit from the
availability of this knowledge. On their behalf, and on
behalf of this site we extend a hearty "thank-you" to
the Wilderness Canoe Association for their generosity.
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We'd
love to 'finish off' our set of Nastawgan back issues if
possible.
For all of you pack rats - here are the issues that we're still
missing.
Does anyone have the issues that will 'fill in the holes?'
Volume 1 (1974)
Issues 1, 2, 3, 4
Volume 2 (1975)
Issues 1, 2, 3, 4
Volume 5 (1978)
Issue 4
Volume 6 (1979)
Issues 2, 3
Volume 15 (1988)
Issues 3, 4
Volume 22 (1995)
Issues 1, 2, 3, 4
Volume 23 (1996)
Issues 1, 2
Volume 24 (1997)
Issues 1, 2, 3, 4
Volume 25 (1998)
Issue 4
Volume 26 (1999)
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