Minnesota Nonprofit Offering Month Long Expeditions in Canada
SARTELL (WJON News) -- For over 50 years, a local nonprofit has been taking high school kids on a life-changing experience.
Les Voyagers Inc. is based in Sartell. They take 10th through 12th grade students on a month-long canoe trip into the remote wilderness in Canada. They have over 3,000 alumni since the program began back in 1971.
Program Director Jack Grabinski says the cost is $2,900 per person but includes most of the gear you need to survive in the wilderness for a month.
We provide almost everything so the canoes we have at our base camp, we provide the packs, the tents, all the food comes with the cost as well. The only thing you'd pay out of pocket would be the clothes you'd wear so the rain gear, your sleeping bag, etc.
Grabinski says they also do a lot of preplanning and preparing with the group months before they go.
Grabinski says this program is unique to Minnesota and really the only program of its type in the country.
It's not the Boundary Waters where you have designated campsites and you see people. Up where we go in Manitoba and Ontario it's just the wilderness. So you see wildlife up close and you don't see any other crews it's just you and eight other people for a whole month.
Grabinski went as a student when he attended Sauk Rapids-Rice High School, then became a guide. He says students need to learn to work together and communicate with each other and have no communication outside their group.
The mission is to expand the horizons of young people through these intense experiences. You are learning about yourself you are learning how to work with people that you might not know before you leave you are learning how to overcome obstacles expand your horizons and grow as a person.
Crews of nine people - including the trained guides - will be leaving this summer. They have both boys and girls crews.
Interested students can attend one of several informational meetings through January.
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