La Ronge welcomes athletes

Page 13

Heading north?

You bring the tent; we'll provide the sunsets. Stow along your camera; don't forget your boots and your paddles. Get packed for relaxation.

Northern Saskatchewan is filled with everything you need to unwind, largely because it isn't filled up with a lot of ... stuff.

The lands and waters of the La Ronge area are still very much pristine.

Venture only two minutes outside of the community, and you could easily be a hundred kilometres into the wilderness.

"You could live on this lake all your life and still find new little places," according to Sid Robinson, a La Ronge lawyer with a passion for skiing, dogsledding, and canoeing.

It's a busy community ... or rather, communities. The village of Air Ronge, the First Nation of the Lac La Ronge Indian band, and the town of La Ronge are all snug together where the Montreal River tumbles into Lac La Ronge, forming a community of 7,000 with modern services down the street, but the wilderness literally in its back yard.

The Lac La Ronge Indian band is the largest in Saskatchewan, with 7,000 members spread through six communities and southern centres, but headquartered at La Ronge.

The Woodland Cree have lived in the area for many centuries, moving from camp to camp and living off the land. The rich diversity of fine fur pelts attracted the first non-Aboriginal settler to the area, Jean Etienne Waden, who established a camp on Lac La Ronge in 1779.

The Churchill River, about 80 km north of La Ronge, was the highway of the north, extending more than 1,000 miles through the boreal forest.

The river is actually a chain of lakes woven with islands and strung together by sections of tumbling rapids. Trade flourished because of the waterways. Even today, a canoeist can paddle from Lac La Ronge to the Churchill -but remember to portage around the 54-foot drop of Nistowiak Falls!

Just upriver from Nistowiak is the community of Stanley Mission, where Anglican missionary Robert Hunt chose to build Holy Trinity Anglican Church in the 1850s. The boards were whipsawn from local timber, but the hardwood, locks, hinges and 1,000 pieces of stained glass were brought over from England.

Today, the church is the oldest building in Saskatchewan. The main community is on the other side of the river, but the church is no musty, dusty museum artifact. Weddings, funerals and special services are still held there, with parishioners paddling over in boats or zipping over on snowmobiles to fill the same pews that Hunt's flock sat in.

There is still a living spirit to Holy Trinity, said Rev. Charles Arthurson, the diocese's Cree bishop. "The people still use it, and they have the strong faith, I believe, in God and in the church," Arthurson said.

In 1898, Hudson's Bay Company built a trading post on Lac La Ronge. Furs had become a valuable commodity, traded for food, clothing and other necessities.

But La Ronge is no longer an outpost. Though the community is fond of its rustic reputation- and Alex Robertson still mans his old desk at Robertson Trading, buying furs and selling camp supplies, a must-see for visitors-La Ronge boasts a battery of modern services: a new health centre/hospital, full-service hotels, a variety of retail stores, and the third busiest airport in the province.

It is a centre for government, health, education, mining, forestry, wild rice and of course, tourism. Visitors have a lot to choose from: fishing; boating (including houseboat tours) and canoeing; hiking; snowmobiling; cross-country skiing; the Nipikamew sand cliffs, delicate seven-storey formations about 40 km south of La Ronge; crafts at local stores, and artifacts at Mistasinihk Place; golfing on the province's northernmost links.

So on second thought, maybe you don't have to pack too much. All you really need is the time to stretch your arms wide and breathe in the air.

There's plenty more where that came from.