By Beau Hurst

Typically at summer camp, one might participate in outdoor games, sports, arts, competitions, and more. Campers live in cabins with a group of kids their age, where they develop a brotherhood. They spend their free time doing whatever they want within their camp’s grounds. However, the summer going into 9th Grade, I spent three weeks at a summer camp that most others might not enjoy, with an intensive schedule and requirements.

Keeners, on the Ottawa River in the province of Ottawa in Canada, is a camp specifically for those who have years of experience in whitewater kayaking. Keeners is run by a local outdoors company on the river called Wilderness Tours. They offer boating camps and lessons for all skill levels; however, Keeners has its own little village for the most experienced and avid kayakers from all over the United States and the world. It’s for people who have grown up on the water and view it largely as a passion. With my family’s avid whitewater abilities, and my brother Spencer having attended the camp in the past, I figured it would be exciting to spend three weeks of my summer at the Ottawa Kayak School. Typically, there are around 20 to 25 campers that stay for a three-week session. 

I was put on a flight by myself as a 14-year-old kid. It was my first time being alone in an airport, and alone in an entirely different country, where I was forced to navigate my travels solo. From the Ottawa airport, it is around a two-hour trip to the camp grounds. A counselor picked me up in a small red Jeep, and we stopped at a Five Guys for dinner.

Ottawa Kayak School sits along the Ottawa River in a rural farm area, with multiple one-story houses as living quarters. Each house comes with a traditional-sized kitchen, where campers are in charge of preparing their own foods in the morning for breakfast and in the afternoon for lunch. The camp counselors asked us to make a list for grocery items, and we relied on basics like eggs, bacon, peanut butter and jelly, and more. I was used to having already prepared dining experiences for my meals at other camps. However, I found it intriguing that we were in charge of making our own meals, and I felt a refreshing sense of independence.

My flight was a bit later than everyone else, resulting in me arriving alone, while the rest of the campers were already there. When I woke up the next morning, the view from the boat launch was magnificent.

View from the boat launch.

I could see the rapids in the distance, the wide winding of the river’s bend, and morning sunrise as everyone was filing into a small field in the middle for a morning meeting. I hadn’t officially met any of the other campers, but some of them looked as if they were already friends from being there for a longer period of time. On that first day, it was harder for me to feel like I had made the right decision in coming there, because I couldn’t find much in common with the others. However, that would soon change.

Every day, we would kayak extensively, focusing on safety skills, including how to get out of your boat in tough places, how to attach yourself to someone’s personal floatation device (PFD) in order to rescue someone, and how to get yourself out of a situation where you are stuck in a recirculating hole. We spent hours on all the rapids, focusing on tricks and maneuverability. 

Halfway down the river is a rapid called Garburator, a large wave for playboating and well-known around the entirety of the kayaking community. Garburater is most entirely known as “Garb,” and it always has a long line waiting for a drop in, but it is extremely worth it. It was as tall as I was, and I had to get used to being able to control my boat on the strongest feature I had ever surfed. 

I spent hours trying one specific trick: the blunt, where, according to the “Canoe freestyle” Wikipedia page, “The boater begins at the top of the wave, moving downward with forward momentum. When the boater nears the trough, they place the boat on edge, lean forward, and press down on the downstream blade. The current will sweep the bow downstream, quickly rotating the boat 180 degrees to land in a back surf.” After trying for days and hours, with coaching from our world class coaches, I finally landed it, displaying the extent of skill one can gain throughout their time at Keeners. 

View from river right of McCoy’s Chute and Phil’s hole down below.

Each Thursday, our group traveled to a nearby rapid, McCoy’s Chute, to visit Phil’s hole, a Class IV rapid on the middle channel of the Ottawa.

The infamous “Big Water Beatdown Thursday” was no light experience for a first-time camper like me. Each Thursday, Keeners campers are expected to drop into the hole, uneasy as it is to control. It throws you around until you are ejected from your boat, or it spits you. However, getting spit out can take up to minutes of basically drowning, but with safety precautions set up on the shore, kayakers always make it out in one piece.

Additionally, the group took a day trip to the Gateneau River while it was running at high water. The massive Class V rapids were exhilarating that day.

The author doing a backflip on the rocks of the Ottawa River.

Regarding his time at Keeners, Spencer stated that he was “amazed at how much of a better boater you can get, and how much you can learn.” He stated that it was really beneficial that we could learn pretty much all of swift water rescue, an official license of safety to paddle big water, by taking a course.

Most importantly, it was tremendous how much of a better boater I became. I came to Keeners without knowing how to do half of the tricks I would end up conquering. The overall experience for me was nothing short of spectacular, because I ended up meeting some of my best friends, with whom I would spend time with in the future, paddling other rivers. Even at the price of $1495 per week, the experience at Keeners is more than worth it. 

All photos by Beau Hurst.