Flow of the Day: You can expect some early mornings and longer days on our travel days, as James Bay is almost 600 miles north of Montpelier - a long haul! We will break the drive into two days in both directions, stopping along the way for food. While we’re with our Cree hosts, days will slow down and will focus around shared meals, outdoor activities, and snowshoe excursions to see the boreal forest landscape and wildlife. Generally, there will be time for an afternoon rest between activities. The Cree pace and sense of time can sometimes feel slow in comparison to our face-paced lives; there will be plenty of time to enjoy the scenery, linger over a cup of tea, tell stories, and admire sunsets over frozen lakes together.

Clothing and Equipment: This trip is purposefully designed in the later half of the Quebec winter, when snow, ice, and sun are all plentiful. Be prepared for a full winter experience, and also bring a few sets of “town clothes,” like jeans, or comfortable traveling clothes. Please plan to dress modestly when we’re with our Cree hosts. Here is a detailed list of the clothing and equipment that we recommend. Please reach out ahead of time if you are uncertain about any of these items or unable to acquire them.

• Pack one small daypack with these items:
  • Your passport!
  • Other items you might want for our first two travel days.
• Pack (or wear) one duffle bag or backpack with these items for our first few days:
  • Insulated snow boots with removable liners.
  • Winter parka or warm insulated coat.
  • Town clothes - 2-3 pairs of clothes for travel and village days.
  • Warm wool socks (at least 3 pairs).
  • Insulated, waterproof gloves and/or mittens.
  • Scarf or neck warmer.
  • Warm hat that covers the ears.
  • Sunscreen.
  • Sunglasses and/or goggles.
  • Toiletries, including non-electric options for the camping portion.
  • Other items you might want in an overnight bag.
• For our camping portion, pack these items in another duffle bag or backpack:
  • Headlamp or flashlight with spare batteries.
  • Winter rated sleeping bag (ideally rated to -20 degrees).
  • Sleeping pad(s) (the warmest option is to bring 2 pads: a foam pad and an inflatable air mattress like a ThermaRest).
  • Camp shoes (sneakers, slippers, or down booties all work well; you might even bring slippers AND sneakers for full comfort).
  • Leather work gloves, ideally insulated.
  • Snow pants (insulated, or soft shell, or hard shell options will all work).
  • Wool or polyester long underwear, top and bottom.
  • Several layerable wool or fleece top layers of different thicknesses, such as a fleece jacket and vest, or a light fleece and a heavy fleece.
  • Fleece or wool pants. (Yes, you need snow pants, and wool pants, and long underwear bottoms.)
  • Shell jacket (uninsulated, like a rain coat or Gore Tex jacket).
  • Extra base layers, including a t-shirt (it can get warm in the lodge when the stove is cranking!)
  • 2 1-liter capacity water bottles.
• Optional items:
  • Knife (Leatherman, or carving knife, or other camping knife)
  • Binoculars
  • Camera
  • Hand and toe warmers.
  • Baseball cap (or other hat with a brim for sun protection).
  • Crazy Creek or other small camp chair.
  • Mug or thermos.
  • Handkerchief or washcloth for the camping portion. 
  • Boreal forest or northern woodland field guides; other reading.
  • Snowshoes. (Our Cree hosts will have traditional Cree snowshoes for us to use. If you have a pair of your own that you like, please feel free to bring them.)

Physical Expectations: Participants should be able to hike on moderate terrain up to 2 miles per day, and should be ready for northern winter conditions - wet, cold (even sub-zero), windy, snowy, icy, or a mix. That said, late February in James Bay can also be warm and very sunny, with temperatures creeping into the high 30s as the days lengthen and spring returns. Whatever the weather, we will always have warm, dry, safe accommodations to retreat to after our adventures. Participants can expect several shorter outdoor excursions every day, most by snowshoe, with variable snow conditions.

Transportation: We will travel in NBNC’s comfortable 15-passenger van. 

Accommodations: Our accommodations will vary significantly! Please read carefully to make sure you are up for this aspect of our adventure. 

We’ll start with a night at a Montpelier hotel (or in your own beds, if you are local). Our second night will be en route to James Bay, at a roadside hotel on the shores of Lac St. Jean. Once we reach the Cree Community of Ouje Bougoumou, we will spend two nights in the Capissisit Lodge. This is the hotel run by the Ouje Bougoumou Cree Community and is a fully equipped modern hotel with en suite bathrooms and an onsite restaurant where we will eat. You can expect double occupancy in hotel rooms. From there, we move into the bush, joining our hosts Anna and David Bosum at their remote winter camp. We will be camping for four nights, using sleeping bags, sleeping pads, canvas wall tent cabins heated by wood stoves, a communal lodge for meals, and an outhouse. You can expect to share a tent with several other people, though a private tent or cabin could be available if you preferred. On our final night, we’ll celebrate with a stop in Quebec City, staying at a hotel in the city.

Food: Our food will come from a combination of places: restaurants, food that we bring with us, and traditional bush food prepared by our Cree guides. Restaurant food will vary from small Quebec diners, to the onsite restaurant run by the Cree Community of Ouje Bougoumou, to a nice, final dinner in Quebec City. Food that we bring with us will include packed lunches and snacks for our travel days, plus staples like soup, cheese, and fruit to supplement our camping meals. Traditional Cree food highlights include homemade bannock (fry bread), homemade blueberry jam, roasted goose, and walleye, among a lot of other northern forest game. If you are interested in participating and you are gluten free, vegetarian, vegan, or have other dietary restrictions, please reach out ahead of time so we can make accommodations.

Naomi Heindel is the Executive Director of North Branch Nature Center and has been traveling in the James Bay region for two decades as a canoeist, trip leader, researcher, and guide. After first experiencing the boreal forest on a canoe trip at age 15, she caught the northern bug and has returned many times, including on field research trips in college and graduate school. She has studied how resource development - particularly logging - has influenced the land and lives of the James Bay Cree and has written several articles on these issues. She also has two decades of experience as a wilderness trip leader, including leading extended winter camping, canoeing, and backpacking trips. When not in the NBNC office, Naomi enjoys exploring the woods and waters of central Vermont with her husband and two young children.

Hans Carlson is the Executive Director of Ausbon Sargent Land Preservation Trust and has been a frequent visitor, traveler, and researcher in the James Bay region since the early 1980s. A forest and environmental historian, Hans has taught at several universities and is the author of two books and several articles about the James Bay Cree and Indigenous land use history. He has traveled extensively throughout northern Quebec on research trips, leading wilderness canoe expeditions, and on experiential learning trips for undergraduates and adults. His professional focus on the history and conservation of northeastern working landscapes is complemented by personal interests in all types of outdoor pursuits, woodworking, and boat building.

We will also be hosted by James Bay Cree guides David and Anna Bosum, who operate their own cultural tourism outfit and are respected guides and elders in their community.

What’s included

• All lodging and meals, starting with dinner on Day 1 and ending with lunch on Day 10. If you do not need a hotel for the first night in Montpelier, please let us know and we will reduce your trip price by $200.
• Two expert staff guides, who know the region and the Cree communities well.
• Two bilingual local Cree guides.
• Transportation to, from, and within Quebec in our 15-passenger van.
• Pre-departure orientation session virtually or at NBNC before the trip.
• A selection of resources to read or watch ahead of time, for those who choose.

What’s not included

• Incidentals on travel or town days.
• Travel to and from Montpelier, VT.
• Gratuities.

• Please see our COVID-19 page for NBNC's full policies surrounding COVID and other illnesses.
• All participants and instructors will be required to affirm negative test results from a self-administered Covid-19 rapid antigen test taken prior to arrival on the first day of the program.
• Participants on NBNC’s Adventures Afar and multi-night overnight trips must be comfortable with the possibility that someone on the trip may contract Covid-19 (or other contagious illnesses) during the trip, even if they test negative on the first day as required. NBNC will attempt to limit exposure and isolate any such participant, which could include that participant incurring additional expenses such as hotel rooms, meals, or transportation, and missing out on group activities. However, isolation may not be possible at all times on all trips, so all participants should be aware that circumstances may require that a participant with Covid-19 continue to travel with the group.
• Participants experiencing respiratory symptoms will be required to wear a mask at all times when around other travelers.
• Failure to comply with the health and safety instructions of the trip guides will result in dismissal from the trip.
• NBNC encourages all Adventures Afar participants to be honest and transparent about their symptoms, for the sake of their health and the health of those they are traveling with.
• NBNC encourages all Adventures Afar participants to secure individual travel insurance.

NBNC is proud to announce that all of our trips from 2025 onward are 100% carbon-neutral. This includes each traveler's flights to and from this destination, as well as carbon emitted during the trip.

How it Works: The voluntary carbon market has come under intense scrutiny in recent years as the legitimacy and effectiveness of many carbon offsetting projects have been called into question. That's why we're proud to be working directly with the Northeast Wilderness Trust's Wild Carbon program. The carbon credits we purchase to offset our carbon emissions are used to permanently conserve forestland as wilderness. Why wilderness offsets?

• It's Permanent: Unlike most contracts in the voluntary carbon market that have a lifespan of just 10-20 years, wilderness conservation is forever. 
• It's Additive: Acreage purchased and conserved through wild carbon offsets would not be protected anyway through another mechanism later.
• It's "Leakproof:" Forest protection often just shifts and concentrates timber harvest elsewhere. But wilderness conservation is different–wilderness protection here doesn't just move carbon emission over there. That's because old forests function very differently than young ones. Big trees and old soils capture and store vastly more carbon than a young forest of the same acreage. Growing an old forest is like building a natural carbon sequestration factory!
• It's More than Carbon: With wilderness protection comes additional co-benefits like biodiversity conservation, flood resilience, and habitat connectivity. This way, going carbon-neutral isn't just negating our carbon footprint, it's also actively helping conservation in other ways.

Want to learn more?: 

• Read The Ecotourism Dilemma our article on how we think about carbon emissions in the context of nature travel.
• Check out this FAQ for NBNC travelers about Northeast Wilderness Trust's Wild Carbon Program.
• To learn more about forest carbon storage, please watch Understanding Forest Carbon by climate forester Dr. Ali Kosiba.

Ready to go north? Questions? Please contact [email protected] to sign up.

Payment Schedule

• A $500 deposit is required to reserve your space on the trip.
• 50% of the trip balance will be due 6 months before the departure date.
• The remaining trip balance will be due 3 months before the departure date.

All payments can be made via check to: North Branch Nature Center, 713 Elm Street, Montpelier, VT 05602

Cancellation Policies

We understand that incidents and emergencies arise that may force you to cancel your trip. However, NBNC invests considerable time and, in many cases, non-refundable payments to lodges and local contractors to secure our rooms and programming. NBNC aims to be as flexible as possible in our refund policy, but a full refund of your payments may not be possible after the dates indicated. All cancellations must be made via email to NBNC.

• Cancellation more than 180 days before the trip: Full refund of all payments.

• Cancellation 90-180 days before the trip: Refund of any payments minus the $500 deposit. If your space is filled by another traveler, we will also refund your deposit.

• Cancellation 30-90 days before the trip: No refund guaranteed. If your space is filled by another traveler, we will provide a full refund minus the $500 deposit.

• Cancellation less than 30 days before the trip: No refunds guaranteed.