Luskville

MRC des Collines working with farmers to update agricultural development vision

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Journalist

Farmers from all corners of the MRC des Collines-de-l’Outaouais are putting their heads together to come up with an updated vision for how to support and grow the agricultural sector across the territory over the next five years.

At consultation sessions hosted by the MRC in Luskville, La Pêche and Val-des-Monts last week, MRC staff heard from a diversity of producers about their unique and shared business challenges, and facilitated conversations around what the MRC could do to address them.

These meetings were organized as part of the MRC’s project of mapping an updated agricultural zone development plan (PDZA), a planning tool designed by the province to increase communication and develop a relationship between a region’s agricultural industry and the governments that manage it.

This tool is critical in guiding local governments as they develop their land use and development plans, to ensure these are aligned with agricultural needs.

The MRC des Collines-de-l’Outaouais put out its first PDZA in 2019, which listed goals in line with several priorities, including ensuring the sustainability of agricultural zones, supporting current farm businesses and encouraging new ones, and supporting farmers in getting their products to market.

Now, for the price of $66,628 paid to a consulting firm guiding the process, the MRC is working to update this plan.

At the Mar. 17 consultation in Luskville, the first of the three, over a dozen farmers from the Municipality of Pontiac shared their thoughts on what priorities the MRC should set out in its new development plan.

Among them were Blake Draper, who took over his family’s cow-calf operation almost 30 years ago and has been running it ever since, and Justin Alary, the fifth generation to work on his family’s dairy and grain farm, Ferme Stepido.

“The first [PDZA], the goals were a bit hard to quantify or see where we were in obtaining them,” said Alary, who’s been sitting on the MRC’s PDZA committee tasked with keeping track of progress towards its stated goals.

He said a priority for him is to see the new PDZA, a fairly expensive endeavour, to build in better means of measuring progress.

Beyond this, he stated the biggest thing he would like to see come out of this development plan is the hiring of an agriculture-specific staff member at the MRC who can be the go-to person for all farmers.

“Have one resource person that knows everyone’s needs, that has the opinions of all the dynamic producers, and that person has a vision of where everyone wants to go, and can work with everyone, and guide everyone,” Alary said.

“Everyone wants to move forward, and has good ideas. It’s just, where to start? We have a region that has so much potential, with so many different types of producers, but where do we go with all that?”

Draper, for his part, said he hopes a new PDZA can support municipalities in better caring for the territory through road and ditch maintenance, which he knows is challenging to do without raising taxes, but said would help reduce some of the administrative hurdles he encounters.

“To get a ditch cleaned, depending on how many acres of land it drains, sometimes you’ve got to go to the municipality to apply for a permit, go to the MRC and apply with them, have their engineer look to see whether it needs environmental consultation, and take it ahead to the ministry of environment,” he said.

“If it drains over 400 acres, then you have to go through this consultation process, and it can take a few years.”

Beyond this, he said he’d like to see the MRC help bring more local food transformation facilities to the region, develop an MRC des Collines brand for local agricultural products, and support older farmers in finding people to take over their businesses.

“Farmers are getting older, it’s getting harder to get young ones into it, and harder to keep them into it when they do get in,” Draper said. “That’s one of the things we’ve been discussing, is what can we do to make it so that a young person could start up farming and make a living.”

MRC des Collines warden Marc Carrière said challenges of all scales were discussed over the course of the three consultation meetings, but that it’s important the MRC target challenges over which it can actually have influence.

“We’re all saying the same – we have to address things that we can resolve,” Carrière said, noting the MRC’s work to understand producer’s priorities is far from over.

He said the firm hired to lead the PDZA update is conducting a series of one-on-one interviews with farmers in different types of production to better understand their unique needs, and pointed to an online survey, which has already received 50 responses and is still open for input, that is also being used to gather feedback.

He said the MRC’s goal is to finish the new PDZA by the end of this year.

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Luskville park upgrades to include new hiking trails, rink relocation

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Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Journalist

The Municipality of Pontiac has shared the details of its vision for major upgrades to the Luskville Recreation Park, developed in collaboration with Loisir Sport Outaouais and A4 Architecture following community consultations done in the spring of 2024.

The plans were presented at a sparsely attended public meeting hosted at the Luskville Community Centre on Feb. 18. A first meeting was held at the Quyon Community Center earlier in February to share revitalization plans for the Quyon park.

The Luskville park, which stretches from Highway 148 back to the Gatineau hills between chemin Pilon and chemin Nugent, currently includes two baseball diamonds, a soccer field, a skating rink, and pétanque courts, much of the infrastructure for which needs to be upgraded.

The municipality’s plans to do so will reorganize the layout of the park’s sports fields and modernize the current soccer field, put in a new pull-through road at the mouth of the park to be used as a rest stop, formalize three distinct parking areas throughout the park, install better lighting and signage, and develop a network of hiking trails up the small escarpment at the back of the park, which is also on municipal land.

The first phase of this work, which Mayor Roger Larose said he hopes to complete this year, will include insulating the basement of the current service building so the washrooms can be used year-round, relocating the pétanque courts to the skating rink’s current location, and moving the skating rink to an entirely new location, likely next to the Paroisse Saint-Dominique in the village of Luskville, where it will be more accessible to the children at the Vallée-des-Voyageurs elementary school.

Among the six people in attendance at the presentation was Hélène Bélisle, a longtime Luskville resident who served a decade as a councilor for the municipality and another two decades as a school board commissioner after that.

“It’s a serious project, and I think the municipality, council and administrators, have made the effort to bring this project a little farther than other times it was attempted, [when] it seemed like it wasn’t taking off,” she said, noting she’s witnessed waves of interest and energy for revitalizing the park over the years, both from community groups and various municipal councils, but that this latest wave has given her hope the vision will become a reality.

“Recreation and culture is the soul of a community,” Bélisle said. “It is not an expense, it’s an investment.”

Katie Roberts, president of the organization Groupe Action Jeunesse Luskville, said the plans seem ambitious but was encouraged to see the municipality’s vision for improvements.

“A full-sized soccer field would allow Luskville to offer youth access to a sport that’s easily the most inclusive,” Roberts said. “Maintaining the park and trails and any upgrades completed will show Luskville youth that they are valued while giving the community a gathering place to be proud of.”
Several in attendance were happy to hear the rink would be relocated to a more accessible site, and discussed the possibility of using the municipality’s new on-demand transit service to get youth to the Luskville park.

Larose said he’s fairly confident he will secure $250,000 from MRC des Collines-de-l’Outaouais to complete the first phase of upgrades in both Luskville and Quyon parks, the latter of which will include installing a net around the ballfield and a shelter for ball players not on the pitch, as well as upgrades to the current washrooms.

But he said that to do any further work, the municipality would need to pass a borrowing bylaw, and that this will not be possible before the November municipal election.

“For this year we’ve got already enough work to do anyway,” he said. “Next year, if the council has the same vision, then we’re going to go ahead with all this.”

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Pontiac municipality to introduce countertop composting program

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K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist

A new pilot project the Municipality of Pontiac is hoping to launch next month will make indoor composting machines available to residents who might not have the yard space to process their food waste outdoors.

The machines, called FoodCyclers, are small enough to sit on a countertop, and through a process of drying and grinding, reduce household food waste into an odorless dust that can be added to fertilizer or garden compost.

After a resolution is passed at the March council meeting to purchase the machines, the municipality will order them and make them available to residents in two sizes. Contributions from the municipality, the federal government and the makers of FoodCycler will reduce the cost to $200 for a small machine and $300 for a large one.

Mayor Roger Larose said the initiative is one way the council hopes to encourage residents to deal with food waste, which, if not composted at home, gets thrown in the municipality’s garbage.

He said despite government pressures to do door-to-door collection, this practice would be too expensive for his municipality, a largely rural area with many people who already do backyard composting.

“We would need a special truck with two different compartments on it,” he said. “We can’t afford it, and the second thing is, if I go ask the farmer to put a brown [bin] by the road I don’t think he’d be too impressed.”

The FoodCycler initiative, he said, is meant for anyone, but one advantage is that you don’t need a yard or outdoor space.

“It’s people in town or in the beaches who are close to each other, who don’t have the room to compost outside,” he said. “The houses are so close to each other, the lots are so small, you don’t want to have something in the ground because of the smell.”

According to an estimate from a pilot project document from FoodCycler, the 100 machines will process 200 tonnes of food waste and will allow the municipality to save over $20,000 in garbage shipping fees.

The municipality will purchase 50 small machines and 50 large ones, an order that will total $36,500. If all 100 machines are bought by residents, the total net cost for the municipality would be $11,500, an amount Larose said will come from the recycling and garbage budget.

Sheila McCrindle, who is part of a resident waste committee, said when she attended the program briefing last fall it seemed certain councillors did not appear to be on board with the program.

“I’m really surprised they chose to do this. I don’t know what got to them, or what convinced them. They didn’t seem to think it was a good idea,” she said, adding that those councillors were bringing up the large amount of money the municipality would have to spend on the program.

“I don’t know where this money’s coming from, that concerns me. They’re spending this kind of money on a handful of residents,” she said.

A survey of the municipality conducted in 2017 found that only 46 per cent of the roughly 300 respondents were doing home composting, but 69 per cent of people were open to trying it, and preferred the option instead of door-to-door collection.

Ward 1 councillor Diane Lacasse, who was there for the briefing, said she felt the $36,500 price tag for the program is too high.

“I talked to my constituents, and they weren’t interested in [the program] because they compost in their garden and in their fields,” she said. “The only people I think would be interested are in [Breckenridge] and the ones that live in Quyon.”

Lacasse said she would rather see the money go toward green cone composters, another initiative put out by the municipality last year to encourage at-home composting.

Green cones are in-ground digesters designed for outdoor use that break down all food scraps, ranging from fruit peels to bread to meat and dairy.

According to numbers provided by the municipality, only 25 of the 200 cones the municipality acquired were picked up from the office.

McCrindle and Lacasse agreed they felt the municipality’s communication is lacking about these composting programs.

Larose, who pointed toward the municipality’s most recent online newsletter as a source of information about both programs, said a few people have already expressed interest in the FoodCyclers.

“That’s what the 100 machines are for, is to try it out and see if anyone gets involved,” he said, adding that they will re-evaluate the municipality’s participation in the program depending on interest.

He acknowledged the municipality needs to improve communication about the program, and said when communications specialist Natalie Larose comes back from sick leave later this month she will work on a strategy to get the information out there.

“We need to do a campaign to educate the people,” he said. “We’re going to have to spend more time explaining the reason why we have to use it.”

Larose expects the machines to be available for purchase in late May or early June.

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Municipality of Pontiac scrambles to replace culvert before winter

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Larose considers sidestepping federal regulations

K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist

The Municipality of Pontiac’s council passed a motion at Tuesday’s meeting asking the municipality’s provincial and federal representatives to accelerate the reconstruction of a culvert that was washed out in a mid-July rainstorm.

The culvert on Luskville’s Thérien Road has not been repaired since, leaving residents with no connection to Highway 148 other than a temporary detour through a neighbouring construction company.

Some residents aren’t happy with this option, saying an already unsafe detour will become almost impossible to navigate once the snow falls.

“There’s no way we can take this road in the winter without it being dangerous,” said Thérien Road resident Isabelle Girouard, adding that the culvert on the detour is only wide enough for one car and has no railing on either side.

“If it gets slippery, you fall down 12 or 13 feet because there’s no railing.”

Before the Thérien culvert can be replaced, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) is requiring the municipality to submit two documents: first, a report describing the culvert clearing and recovery work; and second, a regulatory review application to replace the culvert that makes sure the proposed work would follow all provincial and federal environmental regulations. 

The stream underneath the culvert is recognized as a fish habitat and the DFO wants to make sure any repair work to the culvert will not harm the habitat or the fish that live there.

To date, the municipality has not submitted either of those documents to the DFO, citing trouble getting cooperation from all levels of government.

Municipality of Pontiac (MoP) mayor Roger Larose said in an interview Monday afternoon they have been getting conflicting information from the engineering firm they hired through the Fédération Québécoise des Municipalités (FQM), which has had three different people dealing with their file since July.

Some of them have been telling MoP to hire a biologist to study the potential impact on the fish ecosystem, while others have been saying not to bother and just to proceed with the work.

“We keep having to start over every time,” he said, adding it has been frustrating getting different messages about how to proceed.

The motion passed at last week’s meeting asked MP Sophie Chatel and MNA André Fortin to raise this issue in their respective governments, but Larose has since said that because the DFO is just following the rules, there is not much they can do to accelerate the process.

He said it’s hard to get any results from motions like these because the representatives are at different levels of government and can’t work together.

Residents such as Girouard have voiced their concerns to Mayor Larose about the detour, saying they want the culvert replaced before winter, which is arriving fast.

She understands the need to protect the fish habitat, but now in mid-October she sees the work as urgent.

“I feel like the provincial and federal plateaus of government are not understanding the urgency of the situation,” she said.

Larose also feels the crunch. This Wednesday night (Oct. 16) he is holding a public meeting where he is going to discuss the possibility of proceeding with the construction of the culvert without submitting the required paperwork.

There could be consequences to going ahead with the work. The municipality won’t get provincial or federal funding, meaning it will have to pay for the $150,000 culvert it has already been looking at, in addition to any labour costs or additional costs.

“We could also get a fine,” he said, adding that he wants to use the meeting as an opportunity to hear how residents feel about the decision.

“I’ll bring up to council, it’s not my decision,” he said.

The DFO declined THE EQUITY’s request for a phone interview, but in prior communications with the department, communications advisor Véronic Lavoie confirmed it had not received the documents required to begin replacing the culvert.

“The Municipality of Pontiac must provide DFO with a report describing the culvert cleaning and recovery work,” she wrote in an email.

“Following this work, the municipality of Pontiac will have to submit a regulatory review application to DFO to replace the culvert, which is located in fish habitat,” she wrote, adding that the work cannot result in the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat.

She said both documents are required before they can authorize any work on the culvert.
Girouard feels that Mayor Larose and the council are doing what they can to help her with the limited resources they have. She acknowledges how few resources small municipalities like hers have, and that Larose has other things on his plate that he needs to do.

In September the council held a special sitting to announce they would hire Pontiac transit provider TransporAction to collect the one school-aged child who lives on Thérien Road — Girouard’s daughter — at her door and drop her at the bus stop on Highway 148.

Girouard is happy the municipality is ensuring her child will get to the bus safely, but for her this is only a temporary solution.She wants work to begin on the culvert so she and other residents of Thérien Road can resume their normal lives.

She feels as if she has been caught in the crossfire of all these levels of government, and that nobody at the provincial or federal level is listening to her concerns.

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Province delays highway construction in Luskville

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Journalist

A portion of the road work scheduled to be completed this fall on the four-lane section of Highway 148 in Luskville has been pushed until next spring due to budgetary restrictions at the provincial level. 

Because the long-awaited highway repairs were already scheduled to last until Dec. 2025, Quebec’s Ministry of Transport (MTQ) decided to reschedule the remainder of this year’s work until the spring of 2025. 

This means for now, the contractor hired to do the work will repave the east-bound section of the highway, and then pack up their crew until next year.

“The contracts are still in place, this is just a temporary suspension of the work,” Marie-Josée Audet, spokesperson for MTQ’s Outaouais office, told THE EQUITY in French. 

She explained unforeseen developments in other projects in the region ate up more of the year’s total budget than they had been designated. This meant the MTQ had to cut some projects short to respect their budget allocation. 

“They got authorization in late August to start, and by mid-September they were told, ‘Stop everything, put it back.’ It’s a complete and utter mess,”  said Pontiac MNA André Fortin. 

“They were told by Quebec City they needed to cut some money, and they basically cut everything they could behind the scenes, pushed back some projects that hadn’t been started yet, and still they hadn’t met their objectives in terms of what they needed to cut so they cut projects that had just recently started.”

“It was pretty surprising because we didn’t receive no letter or nothing from the MTQ to let us know it was going to happen,” said Municipality of Pontiac mayor Roger Larose. 

He said the highway work has been requested for at least six years, since the new dépanneur was opened at the entrance to the four-lanes and it became clear the highway needed to be adjusted to ensure safe entrance and exit of the business’s parking lot.

“Everything takes time, we understand that. But this project was going on for years. There’s no reason the government didn’t plan the money on that one.”

Audet explained the section of the highway currently under construction will be repaved and restored to a safe condition so it can be reopened for use before the winter. 

She said it was too early to tell how this delay would affect the project’s scheduled end-date.

Roadwork on Boulevard des Allumetières in Gatineau has also been delayed due to the same budget limitations, according to a report from Radio-Canada last week. 

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Heavy rains wash out more roads in Pontiac municipality

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Liz Draper, LJI Reporter

The Pontiac region received 36.3 millimeters of rain on Friday as the remnants of tropical storm Debby hit southern Quebec, according to data from Environment Canada.

The torrential rains wreaked havoc across this corner of the province, flooding basements, blasting apart beaver dams and drowning out the culverts and ditches designed to control the water.

While Pontiac’s share of the downpour was less than half of the 83 millimeters Environment Canada reported as having fallen across Gatineau that day, the rain still did some damage along the eastern edge of the Municipality of Pontiac.

In a Facebook post on Saturday, the municipality warned residents of several points where roads had been damaged.

The first, and hardest hit, was chemin Elm, on the section between Highway 148 and chemin Terry-Fox.
Pontiac mayor Roger Larose explained a culvert under the road had overflown and the water had washed away a good portion of the road’s edge.

“By tomorrow night I think it should be open,” he told THE EQUITY on Monday afternoon, confirming the Tuesday night reopening originally predicted by the municipality on Saturday.

Other damage included a culvert washout on the western portion of chemin Kawartha, which was repaired by Saturday evening, and some damage along chemin Crégheur in Heyworth, which was “passable with caution,” the municipality wrote in its post.

This is the second time this summer heavy rains have caused road washouts in this municipality.

In July, another downpour caused the culvert on chemin Thérien to give way completely, forcing the residents of the road to use an elaborate detour.

“The roads should hold on pretty good, but it always depends what you get. Lately we’re getting storms like crazy,” Larose said. “Our ditches and culverts, they can only take so much.”

Mayor Larose explained that after significant delays with trying to get the culvert replaced, the municipality has requested a special emergency designation from the province which he said will help expedite the process and do away with some significant administrative hurdles.

Larose said he’s hoping to open conversations with his residents and with the MRC des Collines-de-l’Outaouais around how best to manage the water as it moves from the Gatineau hills down to the Ottawa River, as he anticipates this won’t be the last time his municipality has to deal with a sudden, and significant, load of water.

“This time I think we were right on it because it happened Friday afternoon and everybody was still [in the office],” Larose said, explaining this made it possible for his team to respond quickly. “But the citizens will have to get ready too, because this is going to happen again.”

Heavy rains wash out more roads in Pontiac municipality Read More »

Heavy rains wash out roads in Luskville

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KC Jordan, LJI Reporter

Two roads in Luskville were washed out as a result of Monday afternoon’s thunderstorm, causing disruptions to local residents.
One wash-out occurred on rue Thérien, just north of Highway 148; the other on chemin Parker, on the south side of the 148 almost directly across the road.
Mario Allen, director general of the Municipality of Pontiac, said the water level in the stream flowing underneath rue Thérien got too high, overwhelming the culvert that runs underneath and taking out the road completely.
“The culvert wouldn’t take it, and now the road is gone.” he said.
Allen said this isn’t the first time this road has been washed out, noting that in 2017 a heavy rainfall took out parts of Highway 148 and some of its adjoining roads, including rue Thérien.
He said the stream’s water level normally runs pretty high in the spring months due to runoff from the mountains, but the level is not normally so high so late in the season.
Workers from the municipality responded to the scene on Tuesday, creating large sand hills to prevent people from trying to travel on the road.
Residents of rue Thérien ordinarily don’t have an alternative exit, but the municipality created a makeshift detour onto the property of Nugent Construction so that residents could enter and leave.
“Council met those people last Friday and they are all aware of the situation,” Allen said.
He noted the municipality already had plans for an eventual detour through Nugent Construction’s property because the culvert had already been slated for work.
“We were expecting to do the work probably this fall to change the culvert, and in order to change the culvert, well, people will need a detour.”

He said they were able to provide an alternative solution for residents of rue Thérien much faster thanks to these already-existing detour plans.
He said the municipality needs to contact the provincial environment ministry before any work can be done to repair the culvert and the road.
“Approval must be obtained from the Quebec government first,” he said, adding at that point they “will go for tenders and then will proceed.”
He said he is not sure how long the process will take, but said it could be until the fall before they are able to get approvals for the work.
The other wash-out happened on chemin Parker, on the opposite side of Highway 148 from rue Thérien.
“When the water went over the road it created erosion, and the next morning we went in and fixed the erosion,” Allen said.
No detour was needed because the residents of the four houses on Parker were able to use the chemin Mckibbon to get in and out.
Municipal workers fixed the road, and people were able to drive on it by Wednesday morning.
Road wash-outs have been a problem this year not only in Luskville, but in the MRC Pontiac.
Heavy rains this spring and summer have caused seven wash-outs on a single road, Jim’s Lake Rd, which runs from Mansfield all the way up to Jim Lake.
MRC Pontiac warden Jane Toller said these washouts are impacting residents as well as some businesses, including Bryson Lake Lodge, some of whose cottages are currently inaccessible due to the washouts.
She said the MRC is working toward finding solutions for these washouts, which are located far apart from each other and will require separate solutions.
For the moment, she says the alternative routes that exist are either costly or cumbersome.
“It’s possible for them to take some of these people by water, but it’s at a cost to them.”
“There are some other roads that can be used in the meantime, but they are very rough and
[ . . . ] not well-maintained. They are more suited for ATVs.”
Toller will be in talks with various government entities as she tries to secure funding for these projects.
“Sometimes things occur that are unexpected and are climate-related. We will do everything possible to try to remedy the situation.”

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Climb the cliffs at Venturing Hills

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Farm to offer first outdoor rock climbing
camp in the Outaouais region

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Reporter

Luskville’s Venturing Hills Farm, known foremost as an equestrian facility but also for its annual classical music festival and its yoga retreats, will add a new activity to the roster of adventures it offers at the foot of the Gatineau Hills this summer – rock climbing.
It’s something Rae Becke, the general manager and head coach of Venturing Hills Farm, also the daughter of the farm’s owners, believes the farm is uniquely positioned to do.

Becke has been offering horseback riding camps on the farm since she was 14 years old.
She fell in love with the animals when her parents bought what was previously the Laframboise farm only a few years earlier. When she was looking for a summer job, she decided to start her own camp, to share this passion with others.

As a young adult, increasing involvement in international competitions drew Becke and her students away from the farm for periods throughout the summer, and so the farm scaled back the camps it offered.
But since the COVID-19 pandemic, Becke has returned to spending more time on farm, regrowing the summer camp programs and farm offerings so that it can be a place for everybody to enjoy horses and the great outdoors.

This year, that mission will include new rock climbing lessons on some faces of the Lusk escarpment that rises directly behind the Becke family’s property.
Becke said the sport, which she first tried in 2021, is in many ways similar to horse back riding.
“Both [sports] help people become more aware of their bodies. These little micromovements happening with your body can make all the difference in what you’re doing,” Becke explained, noting that in her experience, skills developed in one sport are transferable to the other.
“It’s about connecting with your body and with nature.”

When Becke returned from a stint of rock climbing in British Columbia, it hit her that her own farm had an incredible resource right in its backyard.
While several of the rock faces on the eastern side of the farm have been deemed off-limits by the National Capital Commission for conservation reasons, three climbs on the western side of the farm are open for use. “It’s a pretty rare thing to be able to do both of those things, horseback riding and climbing, in one spot. That is not your average farm.”

First of its kind

The rock climbing camp to be offered this summer at Venturing Hills Farm will be the first outdoor rock climbing camp in the entire Outaouais region, according to Becke.
To make it possible on the farm, she joined forces with her friend Alexandre Sauvé, a fully certified climbing instructor who last year started a climbing school in the Outaouais, L’ École d’escalade de l’Outaouais.
Sauvé said that while there is a thriving indoor rock climbing community in the area, as well as several camps hosted by the various climbing gyms in the region, there are no summer camps dedicated to getting beginners out climbing a real rock.

For Becke, being outside is critical to her mission.
“Climbing is about being outside, touching rocks, being in nature, and appreciating nature,” she emphasized. “The more you appreciate nature, the more you want to save nature and preserve the park that we have behind us.”

The farm is offering two separate weeks of rock climbing summer camp this year for kids five to 17 years old: July 29-Aug. 2, and Aug. 5-9.
Each week will offer kids a mix of horseback riding and rock climbing activities. Sauvé and another guide from his company will lead the way when it comes to the rock climbing portion of the camp, while Becke will take the lead on horse back riding instruction.
“Every morning we’ll start with the basics – how to tie a knot, and get them comfortable sitting in a harness, only six feet in the air,” Sauvé said.

Sauvé used to be a very shy teenager. He would stay indoors playing video games, and did not have many friends. When his parents signed him up for a canoe tripping camp, he was forced to spend a month in the woods with people he didn’t know.
“I can still see the impact today of the trajectory change that happened with that camp,” Sauvé saud. “Being away from technology, and nudging me strongly out of my comfort zone, had a great therapeutic impact.”
Sharing that experience with other kids is at the core of what Becke and Sauvé hope to do.
“I’m a strong believer in the benefits of voluntarily stepping out of your comfort zone. We never put any kind of pressure on people, and the backdoor is always open.”

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