Northern Tier Bassett, Manitoba Facility closed

[mashmaster]

What a summer to forget.

Northern Tier High Adventure

Due to extreme safety hazards posed by wildfire activity in the Atikaki Provincial Park and Woodland Caribou Park, including a large fire near our canoe cache on Scout Lake, we have regretfully suspended program for the rest of this summer from our Bissett, Manitoba base. The twenty crews with arrival dates through the end of this summer are being, or have been, contacted and offered a similar trek experience at our Atikokan facility during their originally scheduled dates.

Since July 14, our Bissett team has been working with local officials and closely monitoring a fire that originated from a lightning strike northwest of Bissett and southwest of our canoe cache. On July 18th, the fire increased in size to the point where the fire management team advised us to move all crews out of the area. By 6:30 PM on the 18th, all of our crews who were canoeing in the parks had successfully exited and are either headed home or pursuing other adventures in areas not threatened by the fire.

Most of our Bissett staff are moving to our Atikokan base to continue to provide program for crews there. Bissett Director Sean Ferrier and John Ness will continue to remain at the Bissett base to provide support as our facility transitions to house the firefighters who have been called in to battle the blaze.

As always, the health and safety of our youth, leaders, and staff are paramount. We are extremely proud of the superb manner our staff, youth, and leaders conducted themselves in this unexpected situation; they truly exemplified the best of Scouting’s ideals. We regret any inconvenience to crews and will work diligently to ensure that all affected crews enjoy an alternative high adventure experience this summer.

John Van Dreese Leslie Thibodeaux
General Manager Director of Program

Edited July 20, 2018 by John-in-KC
Clarifying title

[Jameson76]

Cue the "There's Always Summit" (or The Summit / or The Bechtel Summit / or the named for someone zip line adventure) e-mail and that availability

 

[revdmv]

We got the call this morning, and I spoke to John. Our arrival date is the 8/1 so at least we have a week or so. 

Been a scramble, but we're going Atikokan. The drive from Winnipeg is going to take longer, going to swing back through Minneapolis. 

Won't be as remote, but I predict fun.

 

 

 

[69RoadRunner]

Thank goodness Irma didn't destroy Sea Base for us this summer.  Rough time for BSA High Adventure.

[John-in-KC]

The volunteers who busted their butts to restore SeaBase last fall were amazing people. 

[revdmv]

Just back from Atikokan, will have to post a full review in the  High Adventure form.

Nonetheless the staff was great, our interpreter was a Bissett refugee as well. No issues with food or gear. We were able to get into Quetico, and modified our end point mid-way to add more miles since we were moving faster than expected.