Our Quest

Our Journey

Following last year’s Yukon expedition, we are heading back to Canada, but this time to the province of Ontario, and Quetico Park which is just west of Lake Superior, and runs down to the US / Canada border.  The park is part of one of the world's great wilderness areas. Together with the Superior National Forest, just across the U.S. border in Minnesota, it forms the largest international area set aside for wilderness recreational purpose in the world.

The Park has more than 550 lakes of which 292 are named, and herein lies its attraction for wilderness canoeists. The lakes are mostly linked by rivers flowing east to west,  all merging into the Namakan River west of the park, which then finally joins other rivers, ending in Hudson Bay. This helps to make it, along with the adjacent Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, the most popular canoe area in the world.

We will be spending 12 to 14 days out on our own, unsupported, immersed and living in this wilderness. Starting at Stanton Bay, taking a tortuous route involving canoeing more than 200 miles, and more than 15 lengthy and challenging portages, as we travel roughly from east to west across the park, ending at Nym lake. The route will take us past all the best waterfalls in the Quetico and we will be exposed to the potential dangers of black bears, moose and other local wildlife... including the dreaded mosquitoes and black flies!

Rather than our very well defined ‘A to B’ Yukon river trip, this expedition will be more of a wilderness exploration, requiring navigation skills and deep sense of being one with nature and the environment.  Unlike the Yukon, there will be little help from the natural river flow, with each day will involve hard paddling, and sometimes rough windblown open water conditions, interspersed with unknown portages. Team work will be critical, and with potentially difficult terrain underfoot Imi will be particularly challenged by these portages, and the unit will need to adjust to the specific challenges to each portages. All this makes for a true, Fun, Challenging, and Rewarding, adventure.

That's the spirit!

Our Vision

The title Vision Quest deliberately references the connotations around the search for the ‘Meaning in Life’ in the traditional North American Indian cultures.

In our vastly different backgrounds and life experiences, we – Howard and Imi – would seem to make for an unlikely team, with correspondingly unexpected friendship. It is this diversity, when bridged by our common passion  for adventure and appreciation of remote wilderness, that brings us so closely together. In his professor role, Imi is the respected academic philosopher, and Howard, in his ‘Living life as a Series of Adventures' philosophy, is almost the philosophy practitioner. Both of us share a fascination for understanding the journey of life, exploring its meaning and belief systems, and questioning the future role of nature and the wildernesses in our complex world. 


In partnering on these adventures, we allow the challenge of the adventure and our individual diversity to come together to explore for deeper insights on these sometimes daunting subjects. The goal of this blog is twofold: firstly to allow followers to share the essence of our physical adventure vicariously and, secondly, to share some of the philosophical insights and views that are catalyzed by the adventure and the wilderness.