MAITLAND BRIDGE – Canoeing is the best way to experience and explore Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site, and a Maitland Bridge business is finding new ways to help visitors see the area.
“You can enjoy the unfolding landscape as you travel from still waters to small lakes or across the island-studded expanse of Kejimkujik Lake,” says Sophie Borcoman, visitor experience manager at the park.
Thanks to Whynot Adventure, visitors don't need all their own gear to experience everything Keji has to offer.
Whynot Adventure, owned and operated by Cody Whynot and Karlene Hauernd, has been in operation since May 2013 strictly within Kejimkujik National Park. The group offers a variety of services, spanning from the very basic - such as canoe, kayak, bicycle and camping equipment rentals - to outfitting packages. There are guided canoe trips, which can be as brief as two hours or as long as four days, with the most popular being a two-night trip.
Whynot says users can also pick a package complete with a customized menu, where they’ll pack up the top of the line gear, plus purchase guests’ food based on a custom menu they submit and reserve campsites for them.
Whynot Adventure’s Quickie Adventures, which are two- and four-hour guided canoe tours, are immensely popular with local families, says Whynot. He says the two-night guided canoe trips are almost exclusively a family trip. They've often hosted international guests from such places as the UK, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
“Many of these families will write to tell us that the canoe trip in the park with us was the highlight of their summer holiday,” says Whynot.
Park visitation has grown over the five seasons, with the busiest times for canoe rentals being between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays in July and August. Knowing this, it is advisable to book a canoe rental in advance. Whynot says it is easy to do so as there is now a link from the Whynot Adventure website to the Keji reservation page, and vice versa.
“We have recognized wait times and boat unavailability as pressure points for the operation and so have created measures to improve this experience,” says Whynot.
To do so, they’ve added another 35 watercraft, doubled staff capacity and, this season, they’re launching a digital waiver program, which is an on-demand service where folks can fill out their waiver documents before arriving at Jake’s Landing for their rentals. This is intended to cut down on the amount of time spent at the rental window, says Whynot. The company has also incorporated faster payment options and now use a tablet instead of a cash register for faster processing.
For this coming season, Whynot Adventure is experimenting with hourly reservations. Guests will now be able to make a reservation for an hourly rental of a canoe, kayak or bicycle online at the comfort of their campsite on their tablet or mobile device, says Whynot.
Historically, the business has only offered reservations for rental periods of no less than 24-hours in duration, but this season, if guests want a canoe for one hour, it can be reserved for a specific time slot on a specific day.
“We’re really excited about these improvements,” says Whynot.
This season, he urges, don’t miss out on the opportunity to explore Keji by water.
“Canada’s national parks are gateways to nature, adventure, and discovery and Kejimkujik offers some of the best paddling in Atlantic Canada,” adds Borcoman.
Learn more at
https://www.whynotadventure.ca/
https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/pn-np/ns/kejimkujik/activ
