Explore and journey through the picturesque waterways of western Maine on this ten-day canoe expedition.
Maine Rangeley Lakes Canoeing expeditions uncover opportunities for challenge and triumph in a unique wilderness environment while learning teamwork and leadership skills. Heading out on the lakes and rivers of western Maine, you’ll learn to camp and travel simply, relying on your group, the supplies you have on hand and the skills you learn as you go. You’ll have the opportunity to become a master in lake navigation, paddling techniques, woods craftsmanship, weather observation and campsite setup among other things. You’ll have time to sit on the rocks and reflect on your progress as you think about the journey that still lies ahead. Leadership responsibilities are shared so every crew member is integral to planning the journey. Equally important to these wilderness skills you’ll acquire, you will also discover how best to live and work closely together as a cohesive group. The habits learned and strengthened through this canoeing expedition will serve you long after you return home.
This course starts within the next week. Please call us at 866-467-7651 to assess the possibility of applying for this course!
Classic Courses
Are you ready to take a journey that will change your life? You won’t look at day-to-day drama the same way after you’ve conquered a high mountain ridge, made a boat obey your command in windswept waves or slept under the stars watching bats swoop overhead. Joining an Outward Bound expedition changes you. Your crew, your Instructor, your route and your adventures will have a profound and lasting impact on you as you rise to meet exhilarating natural challenges in some of the country’s wildest places.
Build skills, form connections: Learn and practice wilderness, teamwork and leadership skills. Find connections with your crewmates based on support and respect (and fun too!), and in the thick of challenges, discover there is more in you than you know.
Value strengths and strengthen values: Uncover your unique character strengths, develop your leadership abilities and learn how to let compassion in to everyday life by pushing your own limits and working alongside your peers.
Demonstrate mastery: As you gain confidence in new skills, take on more decision-making responsibilities. Work together to achieve team goals, solve problems and succeed both as individuals and as a group.
What you’ll learn: For Middle School students, heading away from home means taking on new responsibilities and expectations with crewmates who are strangers when you first meet and trusted teammates by the end of your expedition. It’s all about confidence.
After you come home, many of the character, leadership and service traits you uncovered on your expedition stay with you, helping you navigate your daily life with more resilience and success.
Canoeing
Wilderness canoe expedition skills are the mark of a New England outdoorsperson. In the foothills of Maine’s mountains are networks of remote lakes and rivers. Students learn to maneuver canoes using paddle strokes such as the sweep, draw, pry and J-stroke. To get from one waterway into another, the group will portage (carry the canoes on their shoulders), and line (guide the loaded canoe down the sides of un-runnable rapids). Team work skills are honed as every member of the crew learns to communicate well as they coordinate efforts with paddling partners each day. Discovering the power of people truly working together is a keystone of the experience.
Rock Climbing
Among the mountains of western Maine are many granite cliffs, known locally as “Little Bear,” “Bald,” “Table Rock,” and “Square Ledges.” For one day of course, Instructors will help students transfer learning from their canoe expedition experience to the rock face, or ropes course. The group will have the opportunity to learn to use climbing equipment, tie knots and climb and belay each other as a team, either at a granite rock face en-route or on a ropes course at our base camp (weather permitting). Climbing develops balance, coordination, flexibility and grace. Climbing also presents many individual as well as group challenges the whole group must accomplish by working together.
Photo courtesy
of Hannah Baker
Service
Service projects are often incorporated into Outward Bound courses through coordination with local land managers, conservation groups, government or social service agencies. While in the wilderness, students are encouraged to practice service to the environment and their team by sharing responsibilities and following Leave No Trace ethics throughout the expedition.
Solo
The Solo experience provides an important break from the rigors of the expedition to give students quiet time to reflect on the Outward Bound experience. With the basics of food and equipment, and with safety a top priority, students will take some time away from the group to be alone at sites of their own, using the wilderness skills learned during the first parts of the course. Often located along beautiful lake shorelines or peaceful rivers, Solo sites are chosen to offer as much solitude as possible (yet be within emergency whistle-signaling distance of other group members). Most students spend their Solo time journaling, drawing or just thinking and resting as they process lessons learned and focus on their goals for the future. Instructors check on each participant at regular intervals. The time students spend on Solo depends on the length of course. On one-week courses, Solo is four to 12 hours long.
Outcomes
Ten-day courses for 13- to 14-year-olds are designed to introduce teenagers to Outward Bound. Supportive Instructors teach the skills of wilderness travel and guide the formation of the group into an expedition team. As the students’ abilities grow, Instructors intentionally and progressively challenge them to take on more responsibilities, try out more leadership roles and develop a heightened sense of self and purpose. Students share ideas, experiment, triumph…and often fail, all under the close supervision of caring Instructors. While safety is conscientiously maintained, students may feel moments of frustration, disappointment and fatigue. These are the times when learning is most impactful. Instructors guide crew members to review their choices, weigh the results, decide what changes to make and try again. Through the process of failure and bouncing back, decision making skills are reinforced, as well as responsibility and resiliency, ensuring the group knows that all successes are truly earned. Students return home motivated to engage more at home, at school, on teams and in their communities.
Course Area
The upper reaches of the Androscoggin watershed is fed by Aziscohos Lake, the Magalloway River and the Rangeley Lakes. Indigenous Abenaki peoples used the Androscoggin as both a means of transportation between winter habitats inland, summer living on the coast and as a source of food. Later the Androscoggin River was used to move logs to mills downstate during the logging boom of the nineteenth century. These days the lakes and rivers are used primarily by canoeists, fishermen and other recreationalists. Some of the portage trails here, such as along the Rapid River, have been in use for centuries. These regions are the ancestral land of the Wabanaki Confederacy, which includes Abenaki/Abénaquis, W∂last∂kwiyik (Maliseet), Penobscot, and Passamaquoddy nations.
SAMPLE ITINERARY
DAY 1
Travel to course area, welcome, equipment issue and check, introduction to camping
DAY 2
Teambuilding: rock climbing or ropes course
DAY 3-5
Canoeing expedition
DAY 6
Solo
DAY 7
Final expedition, return to basecamp, Personal Challenge Event, equipment clean-up and de-issue
If you are ready to enroll on a course click the enroll button next to the course you wish to select or you can enroll over the phone by speaking with one of our Admissions Advisors (toll-free) at 866-467-7651.
To secure your spot on a course you must submit an enrollment form and $500 deposit that is applied toward the total cost of the course and includes a $150 non-refundable enrollment processing fee.