Meanwhile, on the Ottawa

Champlain using his astrolabe by the Ottawa River in 1613,
Library and Archives Canada

Here's something else coming up in May, at the Victoria Day weekend, a so-called Outdoor Ottawa River Festival which is all to do with kayaks, canoes and rafts. The website seems to presuppose that everyone knows where the event will take place, but in case, like me, you can't find that information without difficulty, the apt-sounding address is the Wilderness Tours Resort * at 503 Rafting Road, Beachburg, Ontario. Beachburg is in the Township of Whitewater Region (sic., near Cobden). It's where the French explorer, Samuel de Champlain, in 1603, lost his astrolabe, a quasi mythical object which was not found again until 1867.

* Prime Ministers Trudeau and Chrétien, in the days when Canada still had a functional Liberal Party, both used to enjoy the rafting at this location.