2012 - Wabun's season end

Friends of Wabun - - -

Much is undertaken after all campers and staff have left the island by August 12 - here's a photo montage of some of our happenings over the past few weeks:

Sarah Flotten and I headed off to Cochrane to pick up Cayuga A-M's canoes that were flown out of Attawapiskat on August 15 - we couldn't arrange a charter flight with Air Creebec until then, so Elisa's section flew from Attawapiskat to Timmins on Aug. 5 and we gave them another set of canoes for the return to camp.  Ian Cameron left Wabun at the end of the season but then returned to help out with the closing of camp.  He and I picked up the canoes at Boatline Bay and moved them back to the island -

 Meanwhile, on the island, Marg was harvesting from the garden planted and maintained by our chef Robin Potts during the summer -

interspersing that with a tableload of paperwork to close the camp books and mailings

A few mini projects that Ian took on included re-roofing a couple of outcabins and various repairs around the camp

new garden shed roof













guest sleeping cabin near the
Channel Unit

Lifting the dock panels

This is the coolest dock modification I have ever seen.  The front of Wabun's dock is actually a series of hinged units that when raised convert the rails that support them into ramps that extend the 4" x 8" planks that support those rails into an inclined plane that can take on the ice floes that are driven into the front of the dock on those occasions when the ice loosens in the spring thaw and is driven into the dock by north winds. Without this arrangement, the incoming ice has twice in the last 40 years lifted the entire north-facing L of the dock and deposited it on the beach.

 I actually have video that I took last April when the ice was driven into the dock and the ramps guided it up and over them to fall harmlessly on the dock behind them.

This shot gives you a good sense of how the system works

Ian Cameron, Jason Ball (our winter caretaker) and I then started to haul the boats out of the water, and winterized and stored the motors.

 We finished schlepping all of the freezable items from the outfitting room and tuck shop into what serves as the walk-in cooler in the summer - in the winter, we put a thermostatically activated space heater in there which keeps all items above freezing during the winter months that often see outdoor temperature as cold as -40º F

Marg took on the long-overdue task of inventorying all of the camp's paint supply and constructing a guide board that chronicles the color/supplier/applications of the various paints we use.

 A quiet, September afternoon coffee break by the post-season work crew


We left the island at about the same time the geese began heading south - we headed back to our home in New Hampshire and then off to Minnesota to visit with Sarah Flotten and begin sorting photographs we plan to use in updating the Website, Facebook and Newsletterthis year - Marg and I will be heading back to Wabun next week to finish the whole winterizing of the camp - more to follow.