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With rare exception, I venture forth to Quetico annually, and some years, will paddle in the early spring and near the end of the season. All told, I've been outfitted 28 times by NCCO, and once, the first time, by the Boy Scouts Sommers base. A couple of those trips were in the BWCA.
Over those years, I've led two different scout troops on multiple trips, and have been a party on several private trips with friends and family. The experience described by the upset camper sounds a bit bizarre to me, primarily because of perspective and because of suspected embellishment.
Perspective: Over those many trips I've enjoyed, boys have lost cooking pots Adults have spilled the coffee. I've melted spoons, and burned my wet boots. High winds tore up a tent, and we've tipped over on a few occasions to find we had soggy bags, personal gear, and ruined food. My point is that you adapt, you respond to your situation, and you can either have a good time adjusting to these set backs, or you can let them consume you. Sarah from Prairie is about 10 or 11 portages, if memory serves. It takes two days if you travel heavy, in my experience. I've done it in one day--but was dead tired and set up the tent in the dark, only to find that we'd left a pack containing our sleeping bags at a prior portage.
Whether you, your party, or the outfitter makes a mistake, you have choices to make --either you accept the situation or you let it upset you. The perspective of not having a fork or a spoon, is easy enough to overcome. A missing hot pad? Take a glove, or use a handkerchief. The reaction appears to be WAY overboard in relation to the perspective of the oversight, which was fixed the next day.
Embellishment: I'm wary of anyone who says I don't intend to skewer someone--I just want to get the facts out. Hogwash. NCCO has a full compliment of repeat customers, and consistently has earned high marks from everyone I've paddled with. It sounds like $1000 for a day's loss of cooking utensils is an incredibly responsible gesture. Didn't get the canoe you wanted? Why not ask for it then, or take it up with the pimpled faced 16 year old staffer, if the outfitter wasn't present? Why didn't he ask for the right canoes either at the commencement of the trip, or while he was using the Sat phone to complain about the spoons and forks.
Service: Let's see, NCCO couldn't carry the pack to the customer because it didn't have a permit. That makes sense to me. I've had to buy one every year, and last I checked, the quotas are usually full. It sounds like the outfitter paid a tow boat operator to deliver the pack with the missing equipment to the entry point into the park. Last I checked, the trip from where the customer spent night one was an easy trip back to get the pack. Would I be miffed that I had to return to get this? Probably, assuming that I thought I really needed it.
How on earth that trip back to Prairie in an empty canoe would cost the group the ability to go to Sarah on day two, after the weather held them back on day one, is disingenuous to blame on the outfitter. I've had a canoe break before and have had the outfitter send up a replacement for which we have returned from North Bay, and he did that without charge. I guess if I were a different person, I'd blame all my woes on the outfitter, and if he didn't respond to a shake down for what I want, I'd do my best to knife him in whatever way I could--if I were a different person. But I'm not.
My advice: Get over it--go with another outfitter. But before the next time that you suggest a business is so vile that no one should use it, examine your perspective and motivation for what you write. I'm not sure that a full refund would satisfy some people, as I sense is the case here.
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Warning about North Country Canoe Outfitters!!! (Read 20253 times)
