Ashuapmushuan River Family Expedition
August 19-24, 2025
written by Géraldine Vatan, Montpelier, VT
“
Bright stars are shining
Innu river is rumbling
My heart is settling”
"Ashuapmushuan" is the mysterious and captivating name of a river, lake and wildlife reserve in Nitassinan, the ancestral homeland of the Innu, which sits about a day's drive or 420 miles north of the valleys of central Vermont. In the Innu language, ashuapmushuan means "where we lay, waiting for moose." It takes some patience as well to wait for this name to be tamed and become fluid in your mouth when pronounced. But go ahead and try it anyway because once you have it down I promise, you won't want to let it go.
This pristine and beautiful waterway, full of history, wildlife and barely settled by people, is where Misha Golfman, who has been guiding humans into the more-than-human world for almost half a century, decided to take us on his first river expedition designed for families. And because life can be perfectly unpredictable, the guide who was originally going to accompany Misha could not join us so he ended up guiding this trip with his youngest son Mathias, who is now 22 years strong, and who has gone on bush expeditions with his dad and their family since he was a baby. Having a first family expedition be guided by a father and son team made it extra special.
The goal of this expedition, as I understood and witnessed it, was to build skills and community in the wilderness with the help of nature, nurture and adventure. From my perspective, we won this bet on all fronts. We journeyed down the Ashuapmushuan River for five days and four nights, fueled by paddle power through tranquil waters and rapids, pausing at sandy beaches and swimming midday, fishing for dinner, picking for snack in the brûlés, away from cell towers and modern distractions, closer to nature and to each other. The only screens we had were for bugs, and we did not even end up needing them!
My youngest son Matisse and I joined this trip and we hopped in with Misha and Mathias at 4:30am on the first day of our expedition. I love those early morning departures, they remind me of my climbing and mountaineering days in the Alps when I was barely older than Matisse. The morning darkness smells like the unknown, like endless possibilities.
We travelled north, merrily sharing stories and getting to know each other. We journeyed our way toward Saint Félicien, a village on the shores of Lac Saint Jean, where we were going to meet the other families before departing on our canoes the next morning. We had some trailer troubles, those are an excellent way to swiftly get beyond the first layers of relationship building, a perfect intro to our team building work ahead. As a French native speaker, I was able to help by speaking and negotiating with whoever we encountered to help us deal with our trailer and get back on the road as quickly as possible.
After poutine and subs, we gathered with our group to get to know each other and receive a lesson on packing our canoes. Every moment in the wild was a teachable moment. We learned so much about how to feel and study the past and present of the landscapes we moved through. After our first gathering and packing lesson, Matisse, Mathias, Misha and I drove north to the canoe put-in, camped out and got the canoes ready for our expedition in the morning.
Ashuapmushuan group.
The river was magnificent when all thirteen of us set out for our first day, and everyone was excited. Kids were not catered to on this trip, they were integral members of the team with jobs and tasks to do to help set up and take down camp every day, and they were also our navigators. It was so fun to watch them study the map each morning and learn what to pay attention to. We had five youngsters with us, ranging 5 to 13 years old: Emerys, Tobias, Tyler and Matisse, four boys and one spirited girl, Arianna, who was always ready for action. She reminded me of me, many moons ago.
As it was Misha's first trip on this northern section of the river, and the map was not always accurate, finding established group campsites proved challenging, and it added another bonding and self discovery opportunity for our group. Arrival at camp was rhythmed by unloading as a team, free play for the kids while we were unpacking, firewood gathering and processing, kitchen, tents and toilet setting up, followed by meal prep. There are so many invisible small and big decisions to make quickly in the bush, and experience is a big time saver, especially when one arrives late at camp, or when it starts pouring and thundering, and a fire and dry gathering space needs to be set up.
What is the best wood to pick to build a fire in the wild? How do you choose a place to set up camp? How can you predict the weather is about to change? How can you leave no trace, or better, leave a little helpful gift for the next voyager who will come after you? How can you trust kids to learn from you, teach each other and show you what they are capable of? Through our experiences together we learned all this and more.
During our expedition we did not eat any prepackaged food but rather delicious and hearty meals prepared over a Norwegian firebox designed for efficient campfire cooking. A pasta dish the first night, a Quebecois ragoût the second, a soup from scratch the next with campfire stick baguettes, and delicious fish more than once. Pike, walleye and wananish fish swim and jump in the currents of the Ashuapmushuan. Following Mathias' guidance, I prepared a freshly caught pike for one of our suppers, it made me feel so alive and grateful that my whole body was buzzing.
Our nomadic days would start with stretching, singing and eating breakfast, forest playing or map reading, followed by packing and taking down the camp, a process that gained in fluidity and speed as time passed. It felt so easy to live together with strangers in such close quarters, building a tribe as we paddled, swam, talked, laughed, worked, sang, ate, and slept alongside each other. One of the best binding agents I know between humans is gratitude, and sharing gratitudes with each other definitely deepened our connections. The balance of challenges and good fortune that graced our adventure made for a truly enjoyable and fortifying backcountry voyage with little ones. As the Finnish would say, this experience definitely built our sisu to get ready for a northern fall and winter. I could say so much more but some essential elements of this experience are truly beyond words. I will let your imagination guide you to Ashuapmushuan. All I can add is that a part of me is still there and is not about to come back.
Atshuku, merci, pasiba, gracias, thank you to each member of our multicultural, multigenerational travelling tribe, it was memorable to journey by your side. Hopefully we will meet again around the bend.
