Join us on Sunday, January 22, 2012 for the 4th annual Rabbie Burns Polar Dip in balmy Port Credit.  Held in honour of the famed Scottish poet's 252nd birthday, Adventure Canada's polar dip will see some of the GTA's finest authors, musicians and personalities take the plunge for a good cause. We ask that swimmers gather pledges for participation. All funds raised will go directly to the Ottawa Inuit Children's Centre. The Ottawa Inuit Children's Centre serves Inuit children and youth from birth to 13 years of age and their families to provide Inuit children and youth with a learning environment that will enhance their overall development; to foster positive parenting through support and education; and to promote the retention of the Inuit culture and language. AC will provide a loot bag to the person that collects the greatest amount in pledges.   RSVP - Required for swimmers and the party afterwards at the Harp. sheryl@adventurecanada.com  or 905-271-4000   Where:  Lake Front Promenade Park, 800 Lakefront Promenade in Mississauga.   Directions: From QEW drive south on Cawthra to Lakeshore Rd. Turn east and drive to Lakefront Promenade Park (look out for park sign). Turn right on Lakefront Promenade and follow to the end, and park in the A.E. Crookes Headland lot (next to the Mississauga Sailing Club and the Port Credit Yacht Club.   When: Sunday, Jan 22, 2012 1:00 pm   Following:  Addressing the Haggis, Poetry and Music with Tom Barlow & friends at the Harp, 55 Lakeshore Rd. East, Mississauga.   Love all things Celtic? Join us on our inaugural Circumnavigation of Ireland, May 4-14, 2012. To reserve your space, please email Sheryl.

Join Adventure Canada Vice-President, Cedar Swan, for an information session on award winning tours to Newfoundland and Labrador. Adventure Canada specializes in soft adventure and offers an array of experiences from the northern tip of Labrador, to the bustling metropolis of St. John's. Our presentation will emphasis two 2012 shipboard expeditions: the Newfoundland Circumnavigation and Greenland and Wild Labrador both aboard the comfortable  120 passenger - Adventurer. Are you a landlubber? Consider one of Adventure Canada's small group excursions throughout the province, hiking and camping in Labrador, photography adventures in Eastern and Western Newfoundland, fall colours, a study of arts and culture in St. John's or participate in the centenary seminar on the Titanic tragedy. Join us and learn more about what adventures await. RSVP necessary. Please indicate which adventure you are most interested in.

When: Jan 31

Time: 7 pm

Where: Valberg Imaging

RSVP: rsvp@adventurecanada.com

Join one of Canada's most celebrated Arctic photographers, Michelle Valberg, for a visual exploration of Canada's north. Share in Michelle's many journeys, learn the stories behind the weathered faces, magnificent creatures and light that shapes the land of the midnight sun. Tempt yourself to visit the far reaches of our nation. Michelle will discuss her northern adventures, her recent exhibit at the Museum of Nature and her human outreach endeavour, Project North.

When: Feb 4, 2012

Time: 3 pm

Where: Northern Lights Showcase, Ottawa Convention Centre

RSVP: rsvp@adventurecanada.com

In Adventure Canada's first annual Mini-Expedition and Reunion, we will be taking to the waters of the Toronto Harbour. Join us on Sunday afternoon, November 13, 2011 aboard the fabulous Captain Matthew Flinders (Swan).    This Mini-Expedition is open to everyone, please feel free to bring your friends! Boarding time is 2pm, sailing at 2:30, retuning to the dock at Queen's Quay for 6:30pm - disembark for 7pm.    Tickets are just $20 for Cabin Category 10 (there are no other categories... nor are there cabins) making this the most affordable Adventure Canada Expedition of all time!    The 5-hour expedition will include:   Daily Program, Reading and Clothing lists Expedition cruising around Toronto Harbour Mini Lectures from AC Expedition staff Live performances from some of AC's favourite musicians Dancing Fabulous AC-style prizes Dancercise (see below)  Daily recap  Lunch! For more info on the ship, please click here.   Space is limited to 200 guests, is on a first-come basis, and this is going to be a serious amount of fun!   Please confirm your attendance by calling our office at 1-800-363-7566, 905-271-4000 or email us at rsvp@adventurecanada.com

Our new brochure has been released and is in the mail right now, hopefully en route to you! If we don't have you mailing address and you'd like to receive the new 2012 International Brochure, please do send us an email or give us a call, we'd be happy to get one in the mail to you!   Inside you'll find our new offerings, including our New Zealand voyage aboard the Oceanic Discoverer, and a new instalment of our Celtic Quest, our Circumnavigation of Ireland aboard the Clipper Adventurer.    Can't wait? You can get a look at the brochure right now by clicking here!

Adventurers on Greenland & Wild Labrador got a first hand look at Adventure Canada's Arctic Clean-Up Mission along the Torngat Mountains National Park in Northern Labrador. This project, in partnership with Parks Canada, involved identifying over 80 sites within the Torngat Mountains National Park that contained garbage, including hundreds of old fuel drums. Due to the materials found on these sites, extensive testing was conducted for possible contamination and removing the contamination and garbage from the park.   The coast of Labrador is a favourite destination among the Adventure Canada staff, and Adventure Canada jumped at the opportunity to help clean up the park. On September 23, Adventure Canada removed over 150 fuel drums onto the Clipper Adventurer, bringing them south so that they could be responsibly disposed of. The clean-up mission will continue next year. In total over 40,000 lbs of garbage and fuel drums was removed from the park and surrounding Nunatsiavut through a partnership with Cruise North in 2010 and Adventure Canada in 2011.   Missed out this year? We're booking our 2012 Greenland and Wild Labrador program now. Click here for more info!

AC Canada staff member Tom Barlow (know in the industry as "Barlow") has just released his new album "Burning Days".  The first single 'Steal Like A Billionaire' is a satiric look at the global financial crisis and features a music video shot, in part, on the Clipper Adventurer during the recent AC trip to Greenland and Labrador.  The video features several of the trip's staff and passengers.  To have a listen to  the album or to purchase it click on this link.   You can check out the video on YouTube by clicking here.

The book, STORIES ABOUT STORYTELLERS: Publishing Alice Munro, Robertson Davies, Alistair MacLeod, Pierre Trudeau, and Others, is now available everywhere, published by ECW Press (ISBN : 978-1-77041-068-8 ), and aided by fine reviews in the National Post ("He has a fine authorial voice, conversational in tone, like the best storytellers") and the Winnipeg Free Press ("Delightful.")    Meanwhile his travelling one-man show, with precisely the same title, is hitting the road in October with the following dates:   Vancouver Writers' Festival, October 18 Victoria, October 19 Toronto Harbourfront I.F.O.A., October 22 Ottawa Writers' Festival, October Sunday 23.   Precise details of these performances are give at his website, www.douglasgibsonbooks.com. along with details of his November visits.   More to come!    All members of the Adventure Canada clan are very welcome at all of these events, when the author's hand-shaking and book-signing hand will be in fine shape.

Houston North Gallery's second virtual exhibition presents a selection of 30 recent sculptures from Nunavut inspired by the magnificence of the polar bear.  Do come in and have a look around!  Also visit (or revisit) our first virtual exhibition, "The Spirit World," which will continue through October.   Please click here to visit the Realm of the Polar Bear Exhibition.     Please click here for The Spirit World Exhibition.

Ian Tamblyn is busy working on the CD from Out the NWP and the Greenland and Wild Labrador Voyages.  In total there will be 17 songs -  includes all requests by signed up passengers. For those still wishing to purchase this "gem" email Ian here and include your mailing address and a cd will come to you.  For those who have already ordered, it should be in the mail next week!

Adventure Canada travellers are now familiar with the fact that climate change is taking place at a rapid pace in Canadian Arctic waters.  For the past decade, and particularly this year, summer ice cover has been at an all time low in Parry Channel, the northern route of the famed Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic archipelago.     Up till now, the Beaufort Sea bowhead whale population was thought to be separated by heavy Central Arctic summer ice from the other North American bowhead whale population, which summers around Baffin Island.  Well, the heavy summer ice cover no longer exists and last summer Greenland and Alaskan biologists, using satellite-linked tracking devices, watched in amazement the tracks of two whales, one from the Beaufort Sea, the other from Baffin Island waters, track into Viscount Melville Sound and share that passage for a period of ten days.     Add to that this summer's observation of narwhals near Cambridge Bay, a rare occurrence for a species normally summering at least 400 kilometres east of that community.  Both events are unusual and they raise a broader question: are these exceptional or are entire populations of Arctic whales changing their distribution in response to receding summer ice. Continued research is required to establish that.   Experience the Arctic fr yourself next summer, there is still plenty of selection on ourEpic High Arctic program. Click here for more info!

Low and behold we are holding a Pig Roast and Kitchen Party to celebrate the return of Spring and yet another successful trip around the Sun by our Rear Admiral - Matthew Swan.

 

When:   Sunday April 3, 2011

Time:     Begins at 1:00 pm

              Special presentations  

              at 3:00pm & 4:00pm  

Where:  Hedgerow Farm, 45 minutes north east of Toronto

 

What's Special:           

• Roast Pig on a spit, looks a lot like Matthew


• Vegetarian Pig, that also looks a lot like Matthew


• Lots of other great food offerings on the Potluck Tab 


• Music, all afternoon from the AC musical family


• Property Tours (See below)  


• 32 two storey sauna, largest in the neighbourhood


• Snooker Room


• An afternoon of music headed up by Tyler Yarema's Red Hot Players, Tom Kovacs, Washboard Hank, Dave Marshak and Rebecca Burgum the Karaoke master 


• You :-) 

RSVP Now! 

 

RSVP is essential, please call us at (905) 271-4000, toll-free at 1-800-363-7566 or email us at rsvp@adventurecanada.com. Please include in your RSVP if you intend to join one of our travel sessions.  

 

We will supply a map with your confirmation.

 

Contributions for salads, dessert and wine pot-luck table welcome, but not required.

 

Admission is, of course, free.

Haida Gwaii is an amazing area with over 100 islands, beautiful forested creek walks, rugged exposed headlands, and protected passageways between towering mountains. Theories suggest that parts of Haida Gwaii escaped the last ice age, forming a glacier refuge for certain forms of plant and animal life. How else to explain the presence of plant species found nowhere else in the world, and noticeably different sub-species of bird, fish and mammal? The Queen Charlottes provide a remarkable evolutionary showcase - thus, their description as the "Canadian Galapagos". Guided by Haida Watchmen, we will journey through history as we visit ancient Haida Villages lining the BC Coast. Small ship travel through this unforgettable landscape allows us to voyage to places not reachable by land. We wind our way through the archipelago to enjoy all this beauty...All aboard!

 

July 15-24, 2011 aboard the 14-passenger sailboat, the Island Roamer. 

 

For more information, please click here or email Judy, judy.harper@adventurecanada.com

The Avalon Peninsula has been rated by National Geographic Traveler magazine as the world's number one coastal destination. Come experience it first hand with photographer and naturalist Dennis Minty and his partner Antje Springmann. On this small group tour, they will take you to the heart of the most easterly corner of North America, still largely undiscovered by the vast majority of travellers. It is a tour for photographers of all levels, their companions and the artistically-minded. Book soon, their Gros Morne National Park and western Newfoundland tour is already sold out!

 

July 17-23, 2011

 

For more information,  please click here or email Judy, judy.harper@adventurecanada.com

You can also join Dennis in the Arctic this year on our Greenland & Wild Labrador Expedition.  Check out his tribute to Polar Bears by clicking below.

Polar Bear Tribute

Have you been thinking about enjoying the splendours of the Arctic?  Join us for an information session on the nuts and bolts of Arctic travel.  How to get there?  What to expect? What to wear? Join us at one of our upcoming events to meet our team, learn about outstanding travel opportunities in Canada and have some fun!

 

April 18    @ Canmore Public Library, Canmore  (with AC staffer Jerry Kobalenko)- 5:30 pm

April 20    @ University of Calgary, Calgary (with AC staffer Jerry Kobalenko)- 7:00 pm

May 4      @ Atwater Library, Montreal - 6:30 pm

May 5      @ Valberg Imaging, Ottawa - 7:00 pm

May 10    @ Fort Garry Hotel, Edmonton - 7:00 pm

May 12    @ Vancouver Public Library, Vancouver - 7:00 pm

May 14    @ Victoria Central Library, Victoria - 2:00pm

May 24    @ Prince George Hotel, Halifax - 7:00 pm

June 13   @ The Horticultural Society, New York - 7:00 pm

 

RSVP for each event is necessary.  Please send an email to rsvp@adventurecanada.com (Please put the location in the subject line) or phone 1-800-363-7566. 

In January, Michelle was awarded the "Order of the Good Bear" by the Children's Hopsital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) Foundation for her work and dedication to CHEO over the years. Congrats Michelle!

 

For those visiting Ottawa over the coming months, don't forget to visit Michelle's Arctic Kaleidoscope at the Canadian Museum of Nature.

 

Check out her promo video below:

  

Arctic Kaleidoscope - The People, Wildlife & Ever-Changing Landscape

For more information on the exhibition please click here.

 

Michelle will be joining us on our sold-out 2011 Into the Northwest Passage Expedition. 

Ian is currently touring Canada's West Coast; upon his return Ian will continue to work on Part 3 of the Four Coast Project - The Arctic: Walking  the Bones of the Past.

Ian has also just published his first songbook, Voice in the Wilderness. It features fifty songs and chord charts, open tunings and online links to his songs. The collection is published by North Track Records, and is available through www.tamblyn.com or North Track Records, Box 68 Station B, Ottawa, Ontario K1P 6C3 .

Ian  will also be a guest at the Kingston Writer's Festival, in Kingston Ontario on April 10th.

Join Ian aboard the Clipper Adventurer this Summer on our Atlantic Arts Float.  For more information, please click here or email Sheryl Saint at sheryl@adventurecanada.com

AC Musician Marshall Dane touring Ontario over the coming months!  Check out his schedule below:

March 16:  opening for Doc Walker, Ottawa

 

March 26: Junofest, with Dean Brody El Macombo, Toronto,

 

March 25 - April 10:

Joining the Rowdy Boys Tour with Gord Bamford and Aaron Pritchett

 

Aprill 22, 23: The Corral, Oshawa

 

May 13: Habitat For Humanity, North Bay

 

Please visit www.marshalldane.com/tour for more details

 

Simeonie Amagoalik of Resolute, NU passed away on March 2 at the age of 77 after losing his battle with cancer.

Many of you would remember Simeonie during our stop at Resolute where he would invite us into his house and share his carvings.

One of Simeonie's last and one of his biggest works is the monument commemorating the High Arctic relocatees - a life-sized granite carving of a man which was unveiled in September 2010.

 

For Immediate Release:

February 16, 2011

A New Chapter in Arctic Polar Cruising

Adventure Canada takes majority stake in a new partnership with Cruise North Expeditions

Cruise North Expeditions, a subsidiary of the Inuit-owned Makivik Corporation, is pleased to announce a new partnership with Adventure Canada that will continue to offer polar cruises with the cultural content and Inuit staffing that has become a trademark of Cruise North Expeditions.

In 2011, Cruise North Expeditions departures will be merged with Adventure Canada’s Clipper Adventurer schedule, including dedicated CNE programming. The Clipper Adventurer, a sister ship of Lyubov Orlova has benefited from extensive renovation and offers an ideal blend of safety, comfort and functionality that makes it a leader in the field. Cruise North passengers will enjoy enhanced comfort and programming through the new joint venture.

Beginning in 2012, Adventure Canada and Cruise North Expeditions will each continue their traditional offerings of dedicated sailings with Inuit staff, itineraries and programs specially designed to bring benefit and opportunity to the people who call the Arctic home.

About Cruise North Expeditions

Cruise North Expeditions was founded in 2005 by the Makivik Corporation of Quebec, a highly successful investment corporation born of the first modern-day Aboriginal land claim settlement agreement in Canada (the JBNQA of 1975). Makivik also owns the well-respected First Air and Air Inuit.  Cruise North Expeditions earned a place on Conde Nast Traveller’s prestigious “Green List” for their environmental efforts and commitment to helping preserve Inuit culture through tourism. For more information on Cruise North Expeditions please visit http://www.cruisenorthexpeditions.com or call 1-866-263-3220?

About Makivik Corporation

Makivik Corporation is an Inuit organization mandated to protect the rights, interests and financial compensation provided by the 1975 James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, the first comprehensive Inuit land claim in Canada, and the more recent offshore Nunavik Inuit Land Claim Agreement that came into effect in 2008. Makivik actively promote the preservation of the Inuit culture of Nunavik communities.

For more information on Makivik Corporation please visit http://www.makivik.org

About Adventure Canada

Adventure Canada is an award-winning tour operator based in Mississauga, Ontario that has been providing comfortable and educational voyages to the Arctic, and the world, since 1988. With a special blend of academics, thoughtfully planned itineraries, high quality lecturers and programming and old fashioned fun, Adventure Canada’s innovative style has been recognized by fellow leaders in the travel industry with recent awards from the Travel Industry Association of Canada Business of the Year Award, Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador’s Cruise Vision Award and the National Geographic Top 100 Tour Company Award. For more information on Adventure Canada please visit http://www.adventurecanada.com or call 1-800-363-7566.

Media & Marketing contacts:

Clayton Anderson                             Rebecca Burgum

clayton@adventurecanada.com          rebecca@adventurecanada.com

clayton@cruisenorthexpeditions.com  rebecca@cruisenorthexpeditions.com
Phone: 905-271-4000 x21                 Phone: 905-271-4000 x28