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Spring is here and our lake is OPEN. Time to pull ourselves away from the woodstove and get crackin’! Paddling Centre Open Sat.March 30 We’re tickled to welcome you back to our lakefront shop in the wilds of Carling Township. We know you have choices out there, so thanks for flying with White Squall and here’s our boat sale promises…No Guff Return – bring it back up to 30 days after for a full refund (based on condition)Free Test Paddling – on our quiet lake to your heart’s content.Best Boat Price In Ontario – we will cheerfully price-match any of our in stock boats10% Off Second Boat – equal or lesser value purchased the same day15% Off Most Accessories – purchased on the same day as your boat.We Deliver! – a small charge applies |
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| Wilderness First Aid There are a few spots left on all of our courses, so please have a gander and see how you can become a rock star when your buddy gets a bo-bo on your next outdoor adventure! https://www.whitesquall.com/first-aid/ Paddle Canada Instructor Maintenance Day – May 18 Keep your instructor cert current by attending a ‘Maintenance Day’ and you’ll be glad you did – cause the finest minds this side of Cole Lake – David Johnston, Greg Mason and me are hosing – oops – hosting this full, fun day on mighty Cole Lake. Don’t miss it, the coffee will be hot along with the conversation and maybe even the paddling… https://www.whitesquall.com/paddle-canada-instructor-development-day/ |
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| Ok, What is a White Squall Duckarse? I just knew you might ask, so first off – Janet Lambert wrote in and said “I know exactly what a White Squall is”:A White Squall is what happens when you leave your tantrumy 3 year old daughter in a hastily erected tent, whilst you are busy making supper in the pouring rain. When it eventually dawns on you that it is Too Quiet in there and you look inside the tent, you are greeted by a Snow Squall of floating white specks of completely shredded sanitary napkins.And a beaming 3 year old…So’s ya know.And here is Tim’s take…sort of like tea from china, a bit ‘far-fetched’, but mostly accurate. Sorry for it being long winded – you could scroll down fast like a summer rain and I won’t be bothered:) In summer, a white squall can appear without warning in the open of the Great Lakes. To quote Stan Rogers in the song ‘White Squall’, ‘there comes a blow from nowhere, and goes off like a bomb..’ Appearing as a fast-approaching wall of white mist, associated with strong wind-driven waves and humid air being shoved up and down. It might be the far-leading edge of an approaching cold, dry air mass but most often is an isolated event. Who cares how it’s made, it can turn a lake freighter on its side and is the stuff of legends. I would truly not want to be in a little bitty kayak and see one coming, that’s for sure!Clouds overhead can be fairly happy in the warm air, maybe a westerly haze, maybe some smaller cumulous and usually lots of blue – fooling a boater into thinking ‘hey, ain’t this is a lovely evening on the water’. But as the white squall roars along, upwards of 50 k/hr, the bulldozer effect of warm, moist air rising rapidly can bring gusty, sometimes violent winds and waves. Behind the squall there could be bluebird sky again, adding to the mystery.Stan Rogers tells of a young deckhand on a lake freighter heading north , lying on the foredeck on a sultry summer eve, dreaming of his girl. The first mate doesn’t have the heart to tell him he should be on a line – and out of nowhere a white squall hits, sweeping him overboard. “The ship rights itself and carries on, but “tonight some red-eyed Wiarton girl lies staring at the wall, for her lover’s gone into a white squall.”There is a book written in the 1890’s about a band of fellows who left Wiarton to sail around the entire bay shore in a small open fishing boat, known as a mackinaw schooner though as Tom Sawyer would have said, ‘that’s a stretcher’. It would have been a wild, rugged adventure, setting into shore wherever they could. Who does that for fun in the 1890’s? They landed in the logging village of Parry Sound, loaded up fresh supplies and headed out the Big Sound. As they approached the open Bay and the lower Mink Islands that evening, kids and women from the small fishing station ran down to the shore and waved them in. They were invited to spend the night, and when the fishermen rowed home from the day’s work – supper was served up with a jug of wine. The scene was complete when someone pulled out a fiddle and they danced the evening away. The next morning, these wanderers set sail, with fond farewells and carried on up the northeast shore – eventually crossing back over to the Bruce Peninsula arriving back home in Wiarton. Why am I telling you all this? Well I closed the book and was thinking about their adventures so long ago, and by chance, opened the cover once more. There on the dedication page I had missed the first time, it said: ‘To the Crew of the White Squall’. My heart skipped a beat…Kathy and I named our business after Stan’s song, but finding this old book made it all the more meaningful. |
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| Thanks for slowing your roll and actually reading this. Means a lot! timps – If you truly did read the whole damn thing above, let us know and your name will go into the old smelly wool toque for a chance at – wait for it – yes, new wool socks!Want off the Squall? – Hit reply and tell me to take a long hike off a short dock – perhaps I will, maybe…if I have to…I guess |