Planning begins for ‘Voyageurs’ summer trips

by Dennis Dalman

news@thenewsleaders.com

It’s in the dead of winter and already some eager young people are getting ready for summer camping/canoeing trips way up North as members of “Les Voyageurs” program.

Les Voyageurs (French for “The Travelers”) is named for the French-Canadian fur trappers and traders of long ago who plied the waters and woods of northern Minnesota.

The group, which is local, was founded in 1971 by Fred Rupp of Sartell, a Cathedral High School teacher and avid outdoorsman.

Its current director is Jack Grabinski of Sauk Rapids, who happens to be the Sartell High School boys’ diving coach. In an interview with the Newsleaders, he explained how the non-profit, Sartell-based Les Voyageurs works.

Each summer, six separate groups of high-school students take month-long camping/canoeing trips to the Canadian wilderness, usually areas of the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba. Each expedition group numbers about 10 high-school students (grades 10 and above), accompanied by highly trained and experienced tour guides – often college students.

There are multiple expedition crews that take the trips every summer, with – all told – about 40-50 participants in six groups. Since the program began 53 years ago, more than 3,000 students have participated in the wilderness adventures from cities and small towns throughout central Minnesota.

The modern-day “voyageurs” camp outdoors for nearly a month. Participants are brought to their destinations in buses. They sleep in tents; they take hikes; they fish; they canoe and portage through wild and pristine wilderness areas. There are crews for boys and crews for girls.

No special skills or training is required for crew members. The guides teach students all the camping and canoeing skills they will need to know before setting out on the trips.

A trip costs $2,900 per participant, and scholarships are available. The cost includes everything needed, including food and all the camping and canoeing gear.

Grabinksi, when he was a student at Sauk Rapids-Rice High School, took his first Voyageurs trip in 2018 and has participated in many trips since after becoming a guide and then program director. Last summer, he accompanied a team all the way to the Arctic Ocean in northern Canada.

Grabinski described the trips as experiences in true grit but with lots of fun and humor.

“They (crew members) experience nature in such a direct way,” he said. “It’s unique and intense. And I’ve seen as a guide how it changes people’s lives. People who’ve taken the trips become more confident, with renewed resilience, and they acquire teamwork and leadership skills that last a lifetime.”

This coming summer, there will be two series of wilderness trips, with multiple separate teams. The first session’s trips will take place from June 16 to July 13; the second from July 11 to Aug. 7.

The Les Voyageurs base camp (meeting lodge, training camp) is right next to the Mississippi River in north Sartell at 3724 Pine Point Road.

There are five informational programs about Les Voyageurs, with two of them still open during the last half of this month: from 6:30-8 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 17; and from 6-7:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 21. To sign up for a meeting, visit les-voyageurs.org/expedistions-2024.

For more about the program in general, google its website: les-voyageurs.org.

To learn about scholarship options, call program director Jack Grabinski at 320-292-0082 or contact him at jack@les-voyageurs.org.