I'm Daniel Stewart, a student leader at New River Academy and whitewater kayak instructor for the US National Whitewater Center. This year I will be travelling with New River Academy and documenting our adventures as we travel the world in places such as Canada, China, Chile, and the U.S. I was also lucky enough to win a video scholarship from LVM (Lunch Video Magazine) which will allow me to post updates you can check out from here.

We started out the school year on the Ottawa river in Canada, a large volume river with many playspots scattered about.  The majority of our time was spent at two places, Garberator and McCoy's rapids.  'Garb' was a huge wave with a nice foampile on top, great for throwing any wave trick in the book.  This rapid also hosted the Canadian Freestyle Championships the first weekend we were there, which was a super fun event even though the level wasn't very cooperative.  The day of the competition the level was low for Garberator, making it really flushy and hard to catch.  However, we still all had a great time with many of the other students competing as well.  In the end, I ended up flushing on one of my semi's rides landing me in sixth, one spot away from making finals. 

 
A week later we moved to Keener Village (another part of Wilderness Tours, where we stayed), right next to McCoy's rapids.  McCoy's is a great rapid with playspots like Corner Wave and Left Side hole, as well as a great downriver freestyle spot at the top.  This spot, however, happens to lead into a giant hole called Phil's.  I definitely took a couple of beatings in there, but it was definitely worth it!  Phil's is also a great place to practice going under big holes in a big-water setting, which you can see in the videos below.

 
While we were in Canada we put together a few segments for your viewing pleasure

Welcome to Wilderness Tours

Corner Wave Video

Ramp Video