Raid Temiscamingue '25 - the Director's Cut

Note: A version of this report was published on Sleepmonster.com, but had to be edited down to fit their recommended word count. This is the full rambling 'extended play' version of that - feel free not to read if you've read enough of my ramblings already! Pics should be credited in the hover-over title, but variously by Wladimir Togumi, Marco Bergeron, Kevin Mackinnon, Diane Leger, Wayne Leek, and if not credited to anyone else, by me.

I don't often get to write about international adventure races from a racer's perspective. If I'm honest, I don't get to write about enough local adventure races from a racer's perspective, though that's my own fault: A lot of time being the observer rather than the participant, and a lot of time forgetting how being a participant works.

I'm lucky enough to have travelled out to Quebec for the Raid Temiscamingue twice before, the previous two international editions after the first year was Quebec and Ontario teams only. This time out, I was even more lucky to be asked if I wanted to race it alongside Paul McGreal, the race director of ITERA and head honcho of Durty Events. Paul and I have known each other for 20+ years, originally from racing against each other at the old Hebridean Challenge back in 2004, and while I've worked with him on his own events we've never teamed up before. When he messaged to say he had an entry for Raid Temiscamingue and would I race with him, I was really happy but a bit apprehensive - stage races like this are short and fast, and I'm definitely not the latter of those things. With my original racing plans for 2025 (Itera...) out the window due to spending most of the year from March dealing with injury and illness, Raid Temiscamingue looked like it could end up being my replacement 'A' race. We chatted over it some during the small snippets of downtime during this year's Itera, and it looked like we had common goals to push hard, have fun, and enjoy the experience - never a bad basis for a little adventure.

The long road to Canada

There's the oft-touted adage that 'getting to the start line is half the battle', which would definitely be the case for us, flying ourselves and all our kit (minus the canoe, admittedly) out from Edinburgh to Toronto. One significant hitch to overcome was that Raid Temiscamingue requires you to have your own support crew, which was going to be a bit tricky. You need a friend or two, plus a rental vehicle that they're happy to drive that can take two bikes and an open canoe - the open canoe probably being the trickiest part when it comes to rental vehicles. With 4 weeks to go before the race, we still didn't have a confirmed support team or vehicle, so I put out some feelers through John Price, who I knew from racing the Raid previously. Serendipitously, through him, Wayne Leek appeared - Wayne is an AWRS Referee from Toronto, works with Wilderness Traverse, has supported teams on a bunch of races previously, so definitely knows his way around a transition area and looked like he would be a massive asset. After a few email conversations and a video call, it seemed like Wayne would fit in really well with us and we with him, pending a bit of negotiation since he was going to be away over his wedding anniversary. Unbeknownst to Paul and I, he was also vetting us in the background to see whether we were a pair of 'divas': He obviously hadn't met either Paul or I before, but I'm also pleased that our references came back clean - thanks Rob...

The flights were pretty much the easy part, and taking off from Edinburgh early on Wednesday morning meant we were in Toronto just before lunch. With Wayne not meeting us until Thursday morning due to prior commitments, we actually had half a day's free time. We landed, picked up the pile of bags and bikes, caught the free airport shuttle to our hotel, dumped our kit and immediately headed back to the airport to get the UP Express into the city for a bit of tourist time, something I've never managed on previous trips - if I've had an overnight it's been a late landing, a few hours staring at the inside of a hotel and an early morning flight north! We stretched the legs out wandering around downtown, then decided to research some of the local beverages at the Steam Whistle brewery before a bit of food, a train and a shuttle back, and a fairly early crashout.

We knew we had fallen on our feet when Wayne had managed to arrange the rental of another racing friend's huge Chevy Suburban, with a roofrack and bike racks, to take all the pressure off us having to fly foam canoe blocks and a strap-mount bike rack out in our excess baggage - and meant we didn't need the scratch and dent kit for patching up an airport rental. He picked us up first thing, and we headed off for the five-or-so hours up from the city - with an obligatory Tim Hortons brunch stop - to Kebaowek for the first part of any race; registration, kit checks, and saying hello to old friends. It's always a joy to catch up with those folk, friends on the organising team, race staff and racers from previous years, as well as media crew from the world circuit who appear at semi-regular intervals. Wayne also let us know that we also had some extra support crew for the Saturday of the main race, with Una Hall and her daughter Evie coming up from North Bay to help us and him out. Una is a two-time winner at Temiscamingue, 2023 in the mixed Team Puke with John, then 2024 the Women's top spot in Team Uterati with Barbara Neiss May, evidently knows exactly what it takes on the race, and their help and enthusiasm for the day would be a massive bonus, especially with the number of assisted transitions on the first day.

We'd arrived just ahead of the start of the registration window and the kit checks passed easily - mainly just a safety check on our ropes kit. We both had our cowstail lanyards altered and re-jigged, both passed the brief "rig your descender on here and show me how you use it", and took the remaining time to empty our bike bags from the flight and re-assemble our steeds for the next few days, get the paddling kit out and sorted, and generally try and remember which bag each different bit of kit was in. Consequently, the back of the Suburban soon looked like a yard sale with a long weekend's-worth of racing and camping kit for three people.

The opening ceremony is an integral part of the Raid every year. With registration taking place on the Kebaowek First Nation territory, racers and crew were first invited to a smudging ceremony - a purification ritual - then a parade of flags of the nations represented at the race as well as the First Nations themselves. The international teams this year were ourselves - Team Itera UK - plus Igor and Mateja from Adventure Race Croatia; Doug and Kevin from ARDotWatch in the USA; Lise and Marie, Les Forces du Malt, from Belgium; and Victor and Tangi, VT Squad, from France. The remaining 25 teams were all Canadian, mainly fairly local teams from Quebec and Ontario. From the parade, there were then the introductions and speeches from various civic dignitaries, and drumming and dancing from the First Nation, though a lot of the racers looked a bit reticent to expend the energy dancing with the race ahead. We danced a little, joined the queue for the communal supper, then headed off to get some sleep.

The Youth Prologue: Hanging On

Day one of the race is the Youth Raid, where full race teams get split up, paired with students from local schools, and sent out to race a short Prologue race, mentoring the newcomers. We headed to the HQ venue in Temiscaming and waited for our new teammates to arrive - Paul's appeared first: the Bray brothers, both AAA Ice Hockey players (as high as you get in junior hockey, I'm told), both super competitive and fast, both wanting to push for the win. Then my sole teammate Cedric, who at 16 is already taller than me, super competitive, raced last year, and also wanted to push for the win. Igor's pair of teammates, both from Temiskaming Shores at the north end of the lake, both super competitive and fast, both wanting to push for the win - Paul and I shared a brief moment of amused despair, when Igor interjected with a wry smile and the words "ready to get your asses kicked?". We all joined the throng at the start line, after a short warm up, then waited for the gun and then surged forward, out on the bikes to start, then a short run from a bike drop where the first five teams all shot past CP1. We spotted it, as did Igor and his team, and darted off back towards the bikes then off to the next run CP on a bridge - I was in bike shoes, gasping for breath and trying to cling on as Cedric set a blistering pace, somewhere in the top five teams. Another short bike, a short run, a net climb CP, and another overshoot by a few teams put us at the front briefly, definitely still in the mix for a win, back onto the bikes to start the longest bike leg and suddenly crunch, Cedric's rear derailleur disintegrated.

With teams starting to catch and pass us, we wrestled the broken mech out of the way and tried to singlespeed the bike to push on for the remainder, but with the bike having a little suspension it wouldn't stay in a constant gear. We ran/pushed towards the next CP, with half a mind on dropping the bigger loop round a lake to just head for the canoe section and making up what we could. As we came out to a road/track junction, Ambroise from the race organisation was manning the crossing and shouted to us to ask what the problem was, then said "I have a spare bike, come with me". A quick swap out and Cedric was soon on race director Bastien's bike, and chomping at the bit to catch back time on the teams that had got away from us - I tried to cling on and steer him in the right direction and slow him down for CPs, but let him take the lead on pace.

The lap of the lake was broken up by a short run and a via ferrata for the young racers - predictably, just as winds picked up and a squally rain shower blew through - but we were soon back on the bike and headed to the short canoe out to a buoy and back. Easy paddling got us back upright - I'm told one team did capsize - and back for the final glory lap to the finish. As we pulled up near the old station buildings and the CP location, I told Cedric to run to the CP while I waited. He and others sprinted forwards, then slowed, then looked around. "What's the control description?!" I shouted, since he had the description sheet in his hand - lightbulb moment! "Ah! Sous-sol!" came the reply, and he shot off around the building and down into the cellar. One last bike sprint and we were at the finish, me still gasping for breath but both of us smiling and elated. Maybe not the finish position Cedric had wanted, but a fine finish all the same. And hopefully our legs not too cooked for the next two days...

Day Two: Rivers and Ropes

Day two started with the part that made me most nervous when we got the maps. From Laniel campground we'd start with a 500m swim, and not knowing what water temperatures would be like (and not having brought a wetsuit), this was a potential opportunity for things to go badly right from the gun. We both opted to throw an extra warm layer in our packs - because PFDs and packs were mandatory for the section - to change straight into if needed at the swim exit, fortunately that turned out to be unnecessary as the water was around 15°C, and a nice steady breast stroke - because it's difficult to do much else efficiently in a PFD - got us to the end in decent time. I'd looked back a few times to see a faint look of panic on Paul's face, but it turned out it was just because his bike helmet was being pushed over his eyes by his pack. 'Why was he wearing his bike helmet for a swim?' I hear you ask? Helmets were mandatory for the entire race, including runs and swims, which seems odd but actually saves some time and faff.

The other thing that saved us a little faff was essentially spending half the day wearing our PFDs, since the swim was followed by a short trail run (but without an official transition) so you had to run in them, then doa short bike to a canoe leg, initially with the bikes in the canoe to a drop-off point, then a longer paddle without them - so it was as easier to keep them on rather than swapping a race bib backwards and forwards. That long canoe leg had us making up some of the time we'd lost on the swim, especially over the handful of teams using hired single-blade paddles, and we worked well on the water and around the islands to the next bike transition.

With the next bike section being back to Laniel camp, along a potentially narrow gravel road with team and event vehicles heading in both directions, there was a risk we could make it to transition before our support crew, and with the following stage being run/trek with a river swim and coasteer towards the end (and BAs mandatory) followed by a canoe, it was less risky just to keep the buoyancy on. I'm not sure I've ever spent over half a day's racing in my BA, so I'm glad it's comfortable and treating it as another warm layer, and keeping pushing throigh actually worked pretty well. Amusingly for us, talking through the sequences and risks and opting to just keeps things on seemed to be a little lightbulb moment for Wayne as much as it was us - maybe at least the two daft Brits he was supporting did vaguely know what they were doing!

The river canoe section was one of my favourite of the race, a beautiful section of the Kipawa river, with one hard 400m portage of a major rapid, then a run of one small rapid and 'lining' down two others. The main portage itself was a bit of a pain, a rough, undulating trod through the trees rather than a proper path, and an awkwardly weighty boat to work with. With having painters rigged for lining, the easiest thing I found was to use the painter as one 'lift' as well as one hand on the boat, but even with that it was slightly slow progress. We knew that 'boat on head' was manageable but difficult as well, the boat we had was rigged as a triple seat so didn't have a portage yoke in it that could helped. The rapid we could run was nice and straightforward (though a couple of teams went over one or just after it), and since we don't use open boats a lot in UK races, lining technique is a bit of a lost art and we both almost ended up in the water at a couple of points before we got the hang of it, but once we got sorted we moved pretty well.

Off the river, we got into the last stages of the event, basically a long bike leg with a few out-and-back legs off it, plus a 'special stage' near the finish. We set off at a decent clip, getting the miles ticked off and laughing at some of the intermediate CPs, an abandoned cabin giving a great location to get a Monty Python 'Gumby'-esque face for the camera, a long rough abseil (and equally long rough bushwhack back to the top) getting the weight onto different parts of the behind for once. A 3km run, descending some very pretty singletrack trail but then knowing we'd have to climb all the way back up it again to get back to the bikes, was a last leg tester before we got to that special stage, which when we got there was excellent: Three ziplines across a big waterfall on the Kipawa river, two for the racers, one to tow the bikes across. We'd been sort-of expecting this but it was obvious some racers hadn't - at the briefing the RD was asked if there was a bridge missing on the map as this was in the middle of a bike stage; the sly grin that accompanied the "no" was a bit of a giveaway. We got strapped in and across the river, towed the bikes over behind us, and hit the last CP and bike drop before a short downhill run to the finish line, at a beautiful cabin on the shores of the lake. It would have been an idyllic place to stay and camp, but we needed to get to cleaned up and prepped for Sunday so we headed off, back to the official campsite at Laniel for a night's kip.

Day Three: Silos and Speedway

Day three looked simpler in terms of the schematic, and an easier day for Wayne since most of the transition points were 'NAs' - non-assisted drop points where we would leave the bikes, do a short out-and-back run, ropes activity or similar, then hop back on the bike to continue. It was an earlier 7am start, which made a 4:30am coffee and muffin breakfast a necessity before Wayne arrived to collect us from camp and ship us and our newly named canoe 'Dignity' - turns out we're all old-school Deacon Blue fans. Who knew! - to the start location in a field in the apparent middle of nowhere.

We start with a 1km downhill run to the canoes, then a longer paddle stage with a couple of scramble up and down checkpoints - one was originally planned to be a jump from a rock ledge into the lake, but no-one is jumping, the air temperature just a little too low. Off the end of the paddle there's a long carry of the boat, 6-700m from the getout to the actual transition area, with a CP on a cross mid-way. Since assistance is allowed here the teams with multiple support crew drop their boats, sprint to the CP and the transition and head out straight away; we don't want to saddle Wayne with having to carry our Dignity all alone, so we take the boat while he takes paddles and bags, then change our shoes, drop our BAs, and head out on bikes for pretty much the remainder of the day.

Most of the Day 3 stages are short bikes with a run or activity at the end, Paul took the first ropes section, a climb and rope ladder across an old set of railway bridge pilings, and the CP immediately after it was removed because "the landowner wasn't happy about the CP location"; since the CP was on a beaver dam, perhaps that's better left alone. We made one route choice after here on the bikes which turned out to be not so speedy, a bit of a bushwhack and bog hop, but we're not the only team that took that route and soon we get settled onto an old rail trail that will deliver us pretty swiftly to the crux point of the day, a rogaine section.

Swapping bike shoes for runners at transition I'm looking at the map of this stage a bit nervously: It's not hugely long, only 5km or so, but there's the potential to lose a lot of time as there's only really a trail to the first three CPs. Once they're ticked off, whichever way you take the loop there will be a leap-of-faith control - CP19 - which isn't on a mapped feature and is in an equally featureless area of the map, a rock outcrop in the midst of 100 rock outcrops. We go anticlockwise and take our time with the navigation, hitting the first cleanly, finding the power line that leads to the next, then it's time to shoot a bearing and hope we can follow it accurately. I watch the compass while Paul counts off the paces, and we're soon in the vicinity, but you could be within 10m of the flag and not see it, so this is hard. We search a while, 10mins maybe, and start descending a little further in case we've not quite gone far enough. We start feeling like we've descended too far, the ground is steepening too much, so climb back up a little. We start discussing options for relocation, but there are no good features on the map to relocate from. We bump into 'Those Johnson Kids', a father and son team who I know from the past two races, and we work with them to try and find the control. An extra little hint appears when we bump into one of the race camera crew, who won't give us any clues but we know we can't be a million miles off - and eventually there's a shout, Lake has spotted the CP, so we punch in and start descending quickly to the last rogaine CP and out. We lost maybe 20mins here, but with the penalty for a missed CP at 3hrs, that's not too bad - several teams ditched that one, took the penalty and cut their losses; the teams that hit it cleanly had been lucky.

From here the course takes a couple of surprising turns. We spin up the road to the next ropes section, which turns out to be a slow ladder climb up and fast abseil down a grain silo at a farm, very typical to this area of Quebec. It's my turn for a play so I haul up the ladder, do the slightly dogy feeling (but still secured) shoogle out of the enclosed cage and get rigged on my descender - turns out there's a reason for that bit of the gear checks - and ready to drop. It took a couple of minutes to climb the tower and about 20 seconds to get back down, and the ropes marshal greets me at the bottom with "I guess you've done that before, then." Wayne's there as well, though strictly I think this one is non-assisted, and he chucks us a couple of chocolate milks once I've done my lap of the silo. We get back on the bikes again  and head towards Bearn, via a CP in the back corner of a massive lumber yard (again, typical of the area...), to a 'surprise stage' at Bearn stock car track. We've been assuming since it appeared on the maps that it would be cycle speedway or something similar, but as we get closer we can hear the revving of engines and see a cloud of dust, and it becomes pretty obvious that it involves stock cars. We sign in, and are told one person from each team gets to do a couple of laps - as a passenger, fortunately - in the car.

I let Paul take the hotseat for this one, since he's the captain, and he dons the full-face helmet and neck brace, then climbs very gracefully in through the window of the car. It's not quite a Dukes of Hazzard entry, and he spoils the moment further by cracking bad jokes with the driver, asking what's on the radio and if he can turn the heating up. The car is a stripped out hull with a roll cage and plating, but the engine is 500hp and the driver is determined to get as sideways as possible in the corners, so the laps are soon done. Wayne and I also both got to spectate - though I got offered a helmet and a passenger seat as well since we were in a lull between other teams and one driver was bored, but I politely decline - as the driver seems determined to get the car as sideways as possible in a couple of corners. Once Paul's out of the car (with the assistance of a box to step down on to), he's giggling slightly nervously and shaking the dust off himself, and I think I was probably wise.

Back on our bikes again to the final extra-curricular activity where I get another swim out into a small lake to a buoy (and have a chat with a marshal on a paddleboard, having an idyllic day on the water), then we run to a community trust orchard where some locals are handing lovely slices of traybake to the racers. Mine gets wolfed, Paul's goes in his pack until later, and then with just one ride and one short orienteering section to go we're nearly home, and being in amongst a few other teams we're all pushing each other and trying not to make mistakes. We make the better choice at one point and gain a couple of places, then promptly make a poor choice slightly later and get passed again - my mistake, but such is the nature of the game. We trot through some nice little wooded singletrack trails, around the edge of a graveyard, and out onto a running track - desperately hoping they're not going to make us do a 400m sprint. We spot the red carpet and big inflatable arch and jog into the finish, high-five and hug, and are, I think, really happy with the weekend. We return the canoe, get our deposit back, and spot a little cafe-bar-kiosk next to the finish that looks like it might serve us a cold canned beverage of our choice, and it seems only fitting to sit in the sun as a team, drink a drink, and enjoy a moment's downtime and reflection. A pretty perfect end to a really good couple of days racing.

The aftermath

Results-wise, Team ITERA UK finished in respectable upper mid-pack obscurity in 12th place overall/10th Mens pairs, having achieved our trifecta of aims of pushing hard, having fun and enjoying the experience. We didn't see a bear, a moose, or a beaver, but perhaps that's for the best - we didn't even see the Whole of the Moon, though it got sung a couple of times. On top of that there were some interesting takeaways from the race for me, and as I've seen in previous years the Raid seems to be a great gateway race, hopefully to other, longer races. Stage racing isn't hugely common in the AR world these days, but on top of introducing AR to 200-ish young students, we also spoke with full course race teams who've come from trail running, triathlon and marathon who were trying their first ever adventure race and the Raid is as good a place as any to start that AR journey. The format of the Raid makes that very accessible; lots of short, fast stages with regular contact with support crews if they're needed, and no racing overnight and sleep deprivation to account for. The stop-start nature of day three might not be to everyone's taste, but overall it created a journey, took us to some interesting and typical-of-the-area locations, and meant there was no moment where you got bored of riding, running or anything else. The area itself is beautiful, not so remote and wild that it's intimidating, but un-manicured enough that it can lull you into a false sense of security. It's a great gateway place for racing.

Paul, Wayne, and I talked at long intervals about AR in general and the gaps in UK racing between five hours and 5 days. While the race directors out there will know the complexities and cost challenges of organising shorter supported stage races, it always feels like they could be a good step-up point if they can be made viable somehow - not that I'm professing to know how to do that. My first bigger races were the Saab Salomon X-Adventures back in the early 2000s and then the Hebridean Challenge, and I remember those races very fondly but also realising they were logistically complex and possibly very costly for teams. That said, the Temiscamingue area lends itself to that type of race, lots of smaller communities linked by good but still relatively quiet roads (whether tarmac or gravel), lots of water access, and some good networks of smaller ATV trails, and plenty of places to park the team and organisation vehicles - though the volunteers have to be properly on it to make those parking areas work! If I'm forced towards a minor negative of the area, I'd say some sections like the rogaine would have benefitted from finer scale mapping if it's available, but maybe we're spoilt in the UK with how much land is mapped for orienteering and how good Ordnance Survey maps are.

As well as all the photos from me and the various race photographers, Wayne put together a couple of daily videos from clips of us at transitions and heading out onto the trails, and they're an awesome little memory of the race. I've stuck these in here, hopefully they work - they're best viewed full screen

I can't thank all of the team enough; Paul for inviting me in the first place and being an awesome teammate (and not snoring in the tent); Wayne especially for being an absolute superstar as our support crew, excellent company for the week, and for making it an amazingly easy trip across the pond to go play; Una and Evie for their extra help and enthusiasm; Cedric for pushing me so hard around the Youth Raid and keeping working so hard despite breaking a bike; and of course to Endurance Aventure and all of the Raid Temiscamingue volunteers and staff for planning and putting on a great race. Hopefully, see you next year in some way, shape or form.


...And if you've read this far, well done. Have a nice cup of tea to recuperate...