Each year we give a yearly rundown of some of the biggest news while looking ahead to the next year. Join us as we portage to 2020!

#10 - MEC To Help Roll Out New R-Value Standards For Sleeping Pads

We interviewed MEC to learn more about their work to roll out new R-Vale standards here in Canada.

#9 - Tim Miller, Owner Of Nova Craft Hands The Paddle To A New Owner

Tim Miller retired this year after spending 30 years owning Nova Craft. Chris Rath has since taken over to continue their excellent work.

#8 - Wild Temagami Premieres

Kudos to Hailey and Michael for putting together this short film to share some of the splendours of Temagami while also highlighting its need for protection.

#7 - OTG Meals Provides Campers With Healthy Freeze Dried Meals

It’s always great to hear about a local startup and OTG Meals is an excellent example of that providing freeze dried meals for your next camping trip that are locally sourced.

#6 - Government Of Ontario Wants To Remind Everyone About Crown Land Camping

We highly recommend camping on Crown Land, but while it may be free for residents of Canada, there are some rules to remember. The Government Of Ontario wanted to remind everyone about them (and we wanted to remind everyone about Brad Jenning’s excellent run down on how to get started).

#5 - Ontario Parks Is Releasing New Park Crests

The B.C. Parks Foundation released a few park crests this year in support of the parks, and our readers were extremely interested in the new set of crests for Ontario Parks. Each park crest is representative of something you would find at each park and instantly became a hit amongst campers (and even led to people buying/selling & trading them on Facebook in hopes to collect them all).

#4 - Kevin Callan Announces New Book: Once Around Algonquin

Kevin Callan took all of the adventures (and misadventures) from his 420KM journey around Algonquin and put them into his latest book, “Once Around Algonquin: An Epic Canoe Journey” (read our review of it here). Tied together seamlessly is one part ‘account of his journey with his buddy Andy’, and one part reflection on life. It is definitely worth the read.

#3 - FOAP Releases 2019 Algonquin Park Canoe Routes Map

While we patiently wait for our friends over at Unlostify to put the final touches on their Algonquin Park map, the Friends of Algonquin Park published their most recent copy of their own map.

#2 - Meet Phil Arrata, MEC's New CEO

MEC had some regular headlines this year such as opening their new Toronto store, and some surprise headlines such as their previous CEO (David Labistour) stepping down after 11 years, a new CEO Phil Arrata coming aboard, and then reporting an 11 Million dollar loss this year.

Here’s hoping for a better 2020 for one of our favourite outdoors stores that has shifted their focus away from our favourite pastimes (we still miss the original logo)..

#1 - Gift Idea: MapArt Ontario Parks Scratch Maps

MapArt teamed up with Ontario Parks to release a new scratch map so that you can keep track of all the parks you’ve visited. What a great idea! We had no idea that it would be our most popular post of the year.

So what else happened in 2019?…

We came out with a few fun videos this year. We had game night at Kevin Callan’s house (can you believe there is actually a canoeing board game?), came out with a tip on how to be safer in the backcountry, tackled winter camping on the most depressing day of the year, and had a great paddle on the French River.

Outdoors Gear Stores

Edmonton’s Track and Trail opened a second location, L.L. Bean opened their first store in Canada, SAIL opening a new location In Sherbrooke, Québec and MEC moved their Toronto store a few streets North to a much larger location.

Photo Contest

We had another hugely successful photo contest where readers shared their adventures from all across this great country. I highly recommend having a look and maybe it will inspire you for next year’s canoe adventures (don’t forget to remember to enter next year)!

Health

Health Canada announced that they are reassessing Flame Retardants that are required here In Canada for tents. The process could take a while, but hopefully the outcome will be in favour of removing the toxic chemicals altogether.

Camping Gear

We came out with a list of Canadian Camping Gear Manufactures to highlight some of the great products that are coming out of our great country. Support local!

Anniversaries

We turned nine! Thanks for enjoying our site, your feedback and readership help make us the site we are today. We’re looking forward to our 10th anniversary in 2020.

Congratulations to Mike & Fiona who celebrated Badger Paddles 10th Anniversary!

Canadian Adventurers

Canadian adventurers really shone in 2019. Adam Shoalts published a new book Beyond The Trees, Justin Barbour published Man and Dog: Through The Newfoundland Wilderness (read our review here).

Northern Scavenger released the trailer to their Boreal to Barrenlands expedition.

Jim Baird has released his entire video series of his adventure in the Yukon.

In Memory…

We had a few passings this year in the outdoor community. Mors Kochanski the Patron Saint of Bushcraft and renowned Canadian wilderness survival expert passed away.

In spite of his family's belief that he would eventually be crushed by a tower of toppling books in his magnificent and eccentric library, Mors Kochanski died at his home in the early hours of December 5, 2019, of peritoneal mesothelioma.

Columbia Sportswear Company’s iconic “One Tough Mother”, Gert Boyle passed away at the age of 95. Gert had many roles at Columbia from seamstress of the first fishing vest to President to advertising icon. Her sharp wit and wisdom helped propel the company from near bankruptcy in the early ‘70s to the global multi-brand company it is today.

Jim Baird’s dog Buck also passed away at then end of the year.

It goes without saying that Buck was a once-in-a-lifetime dog. His temperament and demeanour made him very stress-free and fun to be around. He is the kind of dog that everyone wants. He got along very well with people of all ages, other dogs - particularly females, and he even amazingly tolerated our cats. And at the same time, he did really cool stuff. He towed sleds across the Arctic wilderness, enjoyed sleeping outside in cold temps while we were winter camping, his favourite treat was frozen raw fish - and any raw meat he was offered for that matter. He’d also regularly help himself to any blueberry patches we crossed too.
He was a good hunter (not for me but for himself) and has killed (and in some cases eaten) more mice than our cats! He was a great swimmer and swam alongside our canes and across lakes for fun on some occasions. He was amazing at running around rapids and meeting us at the end to jump back in the canoe after we ran them. He backpacked across the Rockies with us where he forded rushing rivers and carried his own pack, he even chased off a bear that burst into our campsite on one occasion.
Buck was on the Discovery Channel, History Channel and in multiple Explore magazine articles, and he was even sponsored by a dog food company.
He crossed the Ungava Peninsula with me and Baffin Island too on long winter treks, he canoed the East Natashquan, Porcupine, and Mountain Rivers and came along on many other long canoe trips and winter camping treks with us.

Camping

Both Ontario Parks and B.C. Parks added new features to their online camping reservation services. Ontario Parks added more functionality to make the site more mobile friendly while B.C. Parks added features to help you find your site and add on things like firewood.

B.C. Parks also announced a new record of more than 253,000 camping reservations this year through their Discover Camping service.

Alberta Parks announced that they processed 193,995 campsite bookings in 2019 which was a record for them.

Did we miss anything? Let us know!

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