BOARD OF
Directors
Wally Schaber
Founder and director of Friends of Dumoine since 2016.
Wally is the founder of Black Feather Wilderness Adventures (est. 1974) and co-founder of Trailhead, launched in 1976. He holds a degree in Environmental Studies from the University of Waterloo, graduating in 1974.
In 2016, he published Last of the Wild Rivers, a book that reflects his deep connection to the natural world. Wally lives in Chelsea, Quebec.
Mark Stiles
A resident of Ottawa, Mark has been a supporter of the Friends of Dumoine since its inception and has paddled the Dumoine almost every year for the past 45 years. Now retired after a successful international consulting career, Mark is devoting much of his time to voluntary work – when not otherwise engaged with his four grandchildren.
He is a member of the governance committee and nominations sub-committee of the Canadian Canoe Museum and a supporter of several environmental organizations. Mark has volunteered for the FOD/ARD governance and nominating committee, where he now works on by-laws and related governance policies. He would like to ensure FOD/ARD has a strong organizational foundation and can rely on a roster of diverse and talented board and committee members to enable the organization to fulfill its mandate long into the future.
Mark has also agreed to help secure insurance for the organization and its board and will spearhead the FOD/ARD’s application for charitable status in 2026.
Marc Audet
Marc is a retired geological engineer, who worked 28 years in risk and safety assessment. Before this, he worked in the forest and mining industries. conducting survey work in wilderness settings. Marc has also served in the Canadian Ski Patrol system for 15 years, focusing on accident/injury prevention and treatment. It was from this background that he gained the necessary knowledge and experience to act as lead for the development of the Dumoine Trail emergency plan.
Now retired and living in Deep River, Ontario, Marc is an active member of the Friends of Dumoine and the Deep River Cross Country Ski Club, as well as an excellent scuba diver, musician, and song writer.
Erin Pehar
A native of Toronto, Erin left city life behind long ago in favour of rivers and trails. She is the owner of MHOAdventures, based in Huntsville, Ontario where she lives with her partner and two young boys. Erin brings more than 25 years of experience in the outdoor industry, including having been director of YMCA Camp Pine Crest and lead instructor and program coordinator for Outward Bound programs.
Erin has guided canoe trips throughout Northern Ontario, Quebec, and the Northwest Territories. She spends most of her winters guiding dog sledding trips in Algonquin Park and the Yukon. She is an Ontario Recrearional Canoeing and Kayaking Association (ORCKA) paddling Instructor, and paddled the Yukon River Quest, a 740 kilometre canoe marathon from Whitehorse to Dawson City, in 2012.
Susanna Lehmann
Treasurer
Born and raised in Germany and having migrated to Canada in her twenties, Susanna is now based in Chelsea, Quebec. She has lived close to rivers and has been drawn to them all of her life. This past summer, she paddled the lower Dumoine for the first time with a group of friends and experienced its beauty and magic:
“We appreciated the campsites, trails (the fire hose!), signage, thunderboxes… (thank you, FOD!) and kept discussing future canoe trips and the possibility of hiking or skiing the Tote Road Trail. One thing was clear: this was not our last trip to the Dumoine!”
Susanna’s values and work experience strongly align with FOD/ARD’s mission and vision. Her professional background is in operations management. While living in central B.C. for about 10 years, she worked in the outdoor industry, including with a rafting company on the Clearwater River. Since 2009, she has been based in the Gatineau Hills, working with global NGOs that are focused on sustainability. Her background includes finance, accounting, budgeting, strategic planning, governance, compliance, change management, system planning & implementation, and risk management.
Laurie Robinson
Ogimaabineesiik, Laurie Robinson is Algonquin and a member of Wolf Lake First Nation. She is Special Advisor to the Seven Generations Education Institute with a distinguished career serving First Nations people and higher education. She was the founding Chair and Executive Director of the Indigenous Advanced Education and Skills Council, a quality assurance agency for the Indigenous Institutes pillar within the post-secondary education and training landscape in Ontario.
As a public servant in Ontario, she served as Special Advisor on Indigenous Issues to the Deputy Minister of the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. Her support of Indigenous Control of Indigenous Education in partnership with the province and Indigenous communities in Ontario saw the development of the Indigenous Institutes Act, 2017.
Laurie has served as an advisor on education for the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. She has supported students in universities and helped develop research protocols between academic institutions and First Nation communities.
She credits her parents, grandparents and relatives for modeling the strength of putting words into action. Laurie has four children and two grandchildren.
Guillaume Rivest
A bilingual resident of Abitibi-Témiscamingue in northwestern Quebec, Guillaume is the founder, general manager and co-owner of Exode bâtisseur d’adventures, an outdoor expedition company based in Abitibi-Témiscamingue. He is also an instructor with the Canoe-Kayak Canada and the Société de sauvetage, which aims to promote safety in the water.
When not acting as a guide, Guillaume works as a columnist and free-lance journalist specializing in the environment and the outdoors. He is a regular contributor to CBC/Radio-Canada and Geo Plein Air. With a Master’s degree in environmental management, he is particularly concerned about issues affecting natural spaces. Guillaume is a board member of the Canadian Canoe Museum and several organizations in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region.
Keenly interested in the history of canoeing, Guillaume believes that the canoe is an important part of what defines us as Canadians, and is the best vehicle to explore and enjoy our hinterland.
John McDonnell
John McDonnell is the executive director of the Ottawa Valley Chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS-OV). Prior to joining CPAWS-OV in 2007, he was director the Forêt La Blanche Ecological Reserve in Mayo, Quebec, where he oversaw the development and delivery of education programs and the maintenance of a series of nature trails.
On joining CPAWS-OV he took over the management of the organization’s campaign to protect the Dumoine River. The initiative was successful: in 2008 the Quebec government provided interim protection to 1445 sq. km of the watershed; this was subsequently expanded to 1,776 sq. km, and the watershed was officially designated as a protected area in 2023.
John lives on a family farm in Mayo, Quebec, where his family has resided and farmed since the mid-1800s. He owns a cabin on the Dumoine River, and spends as much time there as possible hiking and paddling. The cabin is also home to the annual CPAWS-OV artists camp, known as DRAW, which takes place during the first week of August. IN 2017, DRAW artists and John restored the first section (approximately 1 km) of the Tote Road Trail, from the base of Grande Chute to Robinson Lake.
Lynn Rainboth
Lynn is a fluently bilingual (oral and written), retired (2019) elementary school teacher with the Ottawa Carleton District School Board. Lynn resides in Ottawa and has a cottage near Fort Coulonge, Quebec. An avid whitewater enthusiast, she and her partner, Peter, have paddled the Dumoine many times, as well as the Petawawa and the Coulonge.
Lynn is a Certified Tandem Introductory Whitewater Instructor (2021), an Outdoor Leadership Program graduate, Yamnuska (1986), and has a Yoga Teacher-Training Certificate (2015). She taught the Barriere Lake First Nation children at Lac Rapide on the western shore of the Cabonga Reservoir in the Outaouais region of Quebec in the early 1990s. She was a participant in the Caring Society’s reconciliation-based campaigns aimed at supporting students and teachers.
Her hobbies include solo white water canoeing, hiking, cross-country skiing, swing dancing and calligraphy.
Karen LeClerc
A resident of Mackey, between Rolphton and Stonecliffe Ontario, Karen and her
husband Garry, have deep family roots in the region, a passion for its history and a love for the Dumoine’s natural beauty and its many stories. Karen’s family has been involved in the logging and farming industries since the early sixties. As a boy, Karen’s father, Jim Stewart, walked cattle up the Dumoine from the Moore Lake train station to the farms along the Dumoine Road. Her son, Jody, hauled his first load down the Dumoine at the age of eleven. She writes: “The aura of the Dumoine was always present in her life.”
Karen brings to the board a wide range of experience and extensive knowledge of the people and the history of the region. Among her many accomplishments, she served on the board of the Algonquin Forestry Authority for eleven years, was Deputy Reeve of the Town of Laurentian Hills and is currently in her final term as a council member of the Township of Head, Clara and Maria.
Karen was the first woman to drive a logging truck to the mill at Portage du Fort. For twenty years she delivered mail to the rural residents of Deep River and then finished her mail career delivering from Rolphton to Rapides-des-Joachims and west to Deux Rivieres.
When not driving a log truck, a school bus or a mail vehicle Karen had time to raise two kids, enjoy outdoor sports and do carpentry work.