Wilderness Voyages
Knowing ourselves in the world
The Voyage
Discovering meaning through nature and community
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An experience of living in community
A sense of belonging and purpose toward the larger group, beyond oneself. In addition to developing both leadership and teamwork capacities, knowing what it is to live in a community who rely on you and on whom you rely is a profound experience, and a rare gift.
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A meaningful relationship with the natural world
Unique to Headwaters, we intentionally weave environmental philosophy, naturalist knowledge, and eco-social history into everything we do, developing a relationship with nature far more meaningful than simply "enjoying the outdoors."
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Time away from cellphones
With no cell phones or other electronic devices permitted on our trips, it is a gloriously rare opportunity to unplug and re-connect.
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Traditional travel
We travel by canoe and wooden paddle, we portage on foot. We cook on an open fire that we made ourselves, preparing each meal communally. Our food consists of homemade recipes long perfected for the canoe voyage, with fresh baking savoured when we please. We sleep in tents. We awake when our bodies are rested, rather than by the clock. We gather blueberries from the land and our water from the lake. We travel as according to how the weather dictates. We take rest days whenever we find a good spot. We live without haste, for the trip itself is the point.
What Our Trips Look Like
All of our trips are traditional. The lakes, rivers, and portages we travel constitute an interconnected trail system that has been in use by the living beings of the land for thousands of years: we voyage on ancient paths, never the first to have done so and hopefully never the last. What we see has been seen and what we experience has been experienced, but to us it is new, and so long as the wilderness remains free and our hearts remain open, we shall be pioneers of the spirit.
Character Development
All of our trips intentionally develop moral character, with a special focus on the following traits:
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Joy for life and its experiences
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Care for others and our world
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Wonder about life's mysteries
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A feeling of awe for both the grand vistas and the little things
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Respect for the wellbeing of others and our world
We place an emphasis on developing resiliency as the groundwork of moral character
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Resiliency teaches us to keep going even when things are uncomfortable. Because of this, it is the core of moral character, enabling us to ask, "what is worth doing, even if I fail?"
Summer 2025 Voyages
To find out more about what our programs are like, take a deeper dive into the Headwaters Experience and the Headwaters Philosophy.
Siblings, Friends, and Past Participants Discount
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Those who join a program as a group of two or more (such as family members, friends, and colleagues) are eligible for a 10% reduction per-person of the program cost.
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Anyone who has previously taken part in a Headwaters program automatically receives a 10% reduction in the program cost of all future programs they partake in.
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A section of the registration form will ask about the above two categories. If either are applicable, the 10% discount will be automatically applied to your final payment cost.
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Only one 10% discount may be applied per-participant.
To learn more about financial supports, paddle over to our Economic Theory page.
It has been said that "what gives each person his or her personal identity is that person's private store of recollections. If so, then people should be careful curators of the assortment of memories that they collect over the years."
~ John Locke, Kathleen Dean Moore
Memories make us who we are – the experiences and ideas that are powerful enough to remember are the ones which come to form the character of our lives.