Ottawa Kayak School

Hello again!
Just a quick update on the Keeners and Keenerville. This is the beginning of the second week with the largest group consisting of 24 Keeners. The current Keeners are as follows: Craig, Stephen, Jamie, Geoff, Peter, Max, Mauricio, Nick, Finn, James, Ashley, Morgan, Evan, Taylor, Willie, David, Nyle, Rory, Matt, Paul, Aidan, Lane, Jacob, and our newest addition Tracy! Believe it or not I had all of these names memorized the first day, haha. I can’t say enough good things about this group, they are beyond fantastic! Since they are so wonderful, I have been spoiling them every single evening with goodies. I generally get them to help me make desserts or snacks. Tonight we had a camp fire which consisted of marsh mellows, hot dogs, taco dip (their absolute favourite snack), cup cakes, chips, popcorn, and lots and lots of juice. Making a simple snack every evening is a lot more complicated when there is 24+ hungry, growing teenagers to fill up, but I certainly don’t mind. They are all extremely good at listening, helping out, completed chores, well mannered, very respectful, which makes my job a lot easier. I always tell them “If you do things for other, you will get things in return”, which they have come to realize, the more they do around the house and the better they act the more fun it is and the better the food is, haha.
Junior Olymics Freestyle Competition was Friday and boy-oh-boy was it ever beautiful!! We had amazing weather, the sun was shinning, the clouds were on vacation and everyone was smiling. The day was so amazing! The event was held at McCoys, lunch was put on at Keenerville, there was shuttle to assist parents, friends, and others to get over to McCoys island to watch, and everything just worked out wonderful. Thanks to Joe Kowalski for all of his efforts in making it happen, along with everyone else who pitched in for the day! The Keeners made me overly proud…they did so well in the competition, you couldn’t have removed my smile that day if you tried!
Thanks to all the Keeners for your great help and participation this past week, your all such special people and I know for certain you will all be extremely successful in whatever life throws your way.
Continue smiling!!
Keener of the week this week is Willie Underwood (unfortunately I don’t have a picture of him at the moment, but I will put one up very soon). It was very hard to decide who to choose, since everyone has been fantastic! Willie is such an amazing Keener, I can always count on him for pretty much anything. I have walked into Robertsons numerous times and found Willie doing dishes while everyone else is busy participating in activities or kayaking. He is extremely keen to do whatever needs to be done before play. I really appreciate his respectful attitude and willingness to do pretty much everything. Continue doing what your doing! You have certainly been above and beyond this week.
Thank you for reading!
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
Keener “Mom” Coordinator JACKIE!!

It was nice to have a rest from paddling this weekend, i say this but i still went for a short session on both days. It seams even when i try to have a rest day i just get drawn back to the great paddling on offer here. As well as paddling we have been watching movies, chilling and participating in film classes with sam and editing our own keener footage. Tonight we enjoyed a sweet feast courtesy of our keener mum who is alwys spoiling us with cakes and food, What a legend.
Well thats all ive got to say for now.
peace out.

Dave

Hey, this is Jacob. Yesterday was the first day of the weekend and my first weekend at keeners. During the weekends there is no instruction and we are free to paddle or relax at keenerville. Yesterday Rory, Peter, Mauricio and I Paddled at Corner wave and left side during the morning and then headed down to the Lorne for the afternoon. Once we ran the Lorne we took out and had an amazing lunch at the WT lunch spot. After lunch we went to Waikiki, I controled the tow in for the wave. This was really fun because I have never seen or done a tow in before. I learned that a tow in is much harder then it looks. After we were done surfing we walked back up the Lorne towards Keenerville. At the eddy above garb we hung out and swam for a few hours. It was very nice to have some free time to relax and cool off. After this we paddled back upstream instead of running the river. We had a very tasty chicken dinner last night followed by video class with Sam. Today is Sunday and instead of paddling I am relaxing for the next week of instruction and fun ahead of us.
Talk to You later!
Jacob

It’s Ashley Fuller again from New Hampshire, this is my first weekend at Keenerville, and it is deffinately good just to relax, hang out, play some games, and eat food! Yesterday the day was a little stormy in the morning so we all just chilled, i got some work done for school and watched a movie. A little later we played a game of Ultimate Frisbee, even though our team lost like 15-3 it was still fun. Today will probably be very similar to yesterday…

There is nothing like starting a Sunday morning with a big huge breakfast consisting of french toast, eggs, bacon, and some waffles!
The weekends at Kennerville are crazy fun. Ultimate Frisbee, swimming, and Foosball.
Yesterday we had an early game of ultimate and it was so hot out so after our game we all jumped into the river and swam across to the rocks right across from Kennerville. We found a rock you could jump off probably 5 feet height. We did that from about 15 to 20 mins then we walked up the island and swam across the river. On the other side we were doing mystery moves on the eddy line! It was so epic!
After our long swim back we had some lunch then just kind of messed around till we had another game of ultimate and this game was the most epic game of ultimate ever played! There was this one throw that was going right into the woods/bushes and I was running really fast to get it anyway so I didn’t stop and dove straight into the bushes. But somehow the Frisbee landed right in my hands. It was crazy! after that game we went swimming again. But we were all super tired from all that went on through the day so we just swam to the rocks jumped 2 or 3 times and swam back.
After we got back we went to the thunder dome and had some food and watched Robin Hood! We had dinner then got cleaned up. Then Party Sam did some video and Photo classes! They we fun but we were all so tired

Who knows what will happen today!

Morgan Fuller

well there is nothing better to start of the day other than a good breakfast , well we have hot food in the mornigs on teusday thursday and sunday , with amazing pancakes on big water baert down thurday it just sets you up right, expesialy if your getting beaten down ,but i have to say that the french toast today was so sweet and gooey , the good type though ,
so today were are going to run the main so then we can snack olso on the river lunches ,
so it bye from the brit and im proberly going to eat somer more

Hey its Paul my first week of keeners has been great, the food at wilderness tours is great. Garb is almost in just another week or two and the water will be low enough.

We play frisbee a lot, I have kayaked so much over the past week it is nice to relax on the weekends. we also are very competitive at fooseball games. Someone is always in an intense game of fooseball.

hey again,
your token irishman, Rory, here. This is my first weekend at keeners and my first oppurtunity to paddle wherever and whenever i want. Peter, Jacob, my mexican friend mauricio and I paddled mc Coys rapid for a bit in the mornin. I focused mainly on corner wave and ran Phil’s hole a few times too.
Then we went down to waikiki for lunch on the main channel. Burgers and hotdogs…nice. After surfin waikiki for a bit we decided to paddle back upstream to keener ville. We stopped off at a little beach thing for a swim along the way too and found ourselves a nice rock to do flips and stuff off…good times!
Thats basically what I did on saturday. Unfortunately the levels a lil bit high now so not much is workin. I’ll probably just chill out for a while, take a few pictures and do a bita flatwater practice.
thats all for now,
Rory

Hey everyone it’s Nyle here. this weekend we were free to do whatever we want so yesterday I went to paddle at rightside horshoe and at corner wave. I also met up with my kayak instuctor from outside off OKS Duane Craig. he was up here just paddling with a group of his friends and i hung out with them for a bit. Later yesterday when I came back from paddling with Nick and Taylor, I watched Robin Hood. Today we are getting a new keener! For the rest of today i am either going to chill at keenerville or go out paddling.
till next time.. Nyle

This is Aidan Conn from New Hampshire again still having a great stay here at keener world domination headquarters. Keenerville is great and the program is good. this week I hope to learn how to roundhouse and clean spin. bye I’ll write later.