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A Squall Spring
These past few months, Kathy and I have pretended it’s 35 years ago when just the two of us carried boats, opened boxes and answered all kinds of phone enquiries. Actually, we were lucky if the phone rang once a week back then and any ring was cause for celebration! If we ever sold a boat, we did a little dance together. I remember one spring day carrying a kayak up to the road and posting a sign, “Paddle Your Dream!” I got kidded a lot for that, and it set the tone for off-the-wall marketing efforts ever since.
Boat & Gear Sales at Dyer’s Self-Serve Drive-In!
Still have a fair few kayaks, boards and a few canoes to wet your whistle – we have whistles too! https://www.whitesquall.com/kayak-canoe-sup/
We do everything by e-mail, including e-transfer – and then I call Kathy, and we shift the boat up to the side of our house laneway – where you can come and load up, wave to us having tea on our porch – and off you go! It works – is contact free and our battered economy gets a wee little boost. We also have lots of used and new paddles, pfd’s and assorted knicky knacks – all of which can be chatted about over e-mail: [email protected]
Town Store Goes High Tech – Sort Of
Have burning questions? Want to see what’s new in clothing and gear or what’s on sale? No sweatsky gretsky – just ‘Call the Squall’ (705-746-4936) or e-mail: [email protected] and operators lounging at home in their sterilized pajamas are just waiting for someone to ring them up! Once the call comes, they spring into action like an approaching squall on a hot July afternoon, so look out! They’ll get back by phone or e-mail and can do some fancy facetime or whatever floats your phone, so it’s like going for an outing while sipping your morning coffee!
Facebook & Go-getter Gal
Check out our FB feed for the latest from ‘Go-getter Gal’. She’s a quiet sort, but has all sorts of wild adventures wearing funky clothing and gear made for the great outdoors. ‘Go-getter Guy’? Well he’s still on the couch watching re-runs of Friends but might eventually show his face!
Help ‘Harvest Share’ by Shopping the Squall
For every sale through the Town Outdoor Store from now on ’til we open up, White Squall will donate $5 to our local ‘Harvest Share” https://parrysoundharvestshare.com/. They work with other groups around town to pitch in where the need is greatest, and they plug away all year round. Right now, there are a lot of folks that need the help, dat’s for sure.
Crown Land Camping & Fire Bans
Just in case you’ve been sleeping under a toadstool these past few weeks, there is currently a complete provincial fire ban in place, along with no overnight camping on crown land. We dream of the day when a starry night out on the islands is more than a dream – til then, maybe set the tent up in your living room and re-live your childhood!
Tim’s Tip – One More Day…
Kathy Watson, a long-time Squall Staff – wrote in about an experience she had solo sea kayaking up on the Pukaskawa coast. A quiet, accomplished paddler who has travelled that remote and unforgiving shore at least 5 times (that she can remember!) I don’t know anyone who has done that, let alone solo – yet she didn’t write magazine articles about it or put her exploits on facebook – she just did it! Anyway – here is what she wrote about how many of us are pushing to get things opened up again:
“made me think of a Superior paddle where I was wind-bound for 3 days on the flats, near the end of the trip. I had the perfect camp in the trees, out of the wind and rain, with a tarp set up for cooking. I was warm, dry and safe. But I was running low on food, fuel and TP, had read all my books and eaten all the chocolate! So on the fourth wind day, I did something that I never do, and launched early in the morning knowing that the forecast was not great. The wind and waves were already high and I paddled into the wind and rain, inching forward, before turning around and setting up camp again. This time, I was wet and cold, the campsite was wet and all my gear was wet. The next day, it was beautiful and calm. I just had to wait one more day…
seems that people are tired of waiting to move on and willing to take a risk, even though the forecast still isn’t favourable. The hard part is not knowing how much longer this will last before the forecast clears. Hopefully people will be cautious and wait. Hopefully the wind will drop soon.”
Well spoken Kathy!