Team ITERA UK at Raid Temiscamingue

Carrick Armer / 15.09.2025

I travelled out to Quebec for the Raid Temiscamingue to race alongside Paul McGreal, the race director of ITERA and head honcho of Durty Events. Paul and I have known each other for 20+ years, originally from racing against each other at the old Hebridean Challenge, and while I've worked with him on his own events we've never teamed up before. We had common goals for the race: Push hard, have fun, and enjoy the experience.

Raid Temiscamingue requires you to have your own support crew and we were lucky Wayne Leek stepped up.  Wayne is an AWRS Referee from Toronto, works with Wilderness Traverse, and has supported teams on a bunch of races previously, so definitely knows his way around a transition area.  We also had the joy of extra support crew for the first day of the main race, with two time race winner Una Hall and her daughter Evie coming up from North Bay to help us and Wayne out. 

The opening ceremony is an integral part of the Raid every year. With registration taking place on the Kebaowek First Nation territory, racers and crew were first invited to a smudging ceremony - a purification ritual - then a parade of flags of the nations represented at the race as well as the First Nations themselves. The international teams this year were ourselves - Team ITERA UK - plus Igor and Mateja from Adventure Race Croatia; Doug and Kevin from ARDotWatch in the USA; Lise and Marie, Les Forces du Malt, from Belgium; and Victor and Tangi, VT Squad, from France.

The Youth Prologue – Hanging On

Day one of the race is the Youth Raid, where full race teams get split up, paired with students from local schools, and sent out to race a short Prologue race, mentoring the newcomers.  Paul's teammates were the Bray brothers, both AAA Ice Hockey players, super-competitive and fast, both wanting to push for the win.   My sole teammate was Cedric, who at 16 is already taller than me, super competitive, raced last year, and also wanted to push for the win.

We all joined the throng at the start line, then waited for the gun and surged forward, out on the bikes to start, then came a short run from a bike drop where the first five teams all shot past CP1. We spotted it, as did Igor and his team, and darted off back towards the bikes then off to the next run CP on a bridge - I was in bike shoes, gasping for breath and trying to cling on as Cedric set a blistering pace, somewhere in the top five teams. Another short bike, a short run, a net climb CP, and another overshoot by a few teams put us at the front briefly.  Back onto the bikes to start the longest bike leg and suddenly *crunch*, Cedric's rear derailleur disintegrated.

We tried to singlespeed the bike to push on for the remainder, but it wouldn't stay in a constant gear. We ran/pushed towards the next CP and met Ambroise from the race organisation, who said "I have a spare bike, come with me". A quick swap out and Cedric was soon on race director Bastien's bike, and chomping at the bit to catch up time on the teams that had got away from us. I tried to cling on and steer him in the right direction and slow him down for CPs, but let him take the lead on pace.

The lap of the lake was broken up by a short run and a via ferrata for the young racers - predictably, just as winds picked up and a squally rain shower blew through - but we were soon back on the bike and headed to the short canoe out to a buoy and back, then the final glory lap to the finish. As we pulled up near the old station buildings and the CP location, I told Cedric to run to the CP while I waited. He and others sprinted forwards, then slowed, then looked around. "What's the control description?!" I shouted, since he had the description sheet in his hand - lightbulb moment! "Ah! Sous-sol!" came the reply, and he shot off around the building and down into the cellar. One last bike sprint and we were at the finish, me still gasping for breath but both of us smiling and elated. Maybe not the finish position Cedric had wanted, but a fine finish all the same.

Day Two - Rivers and Ropes

Day two was the part that made me most nervous when we got the maps. The day would start at Laniel campground with a 500m swim, and not knowing what water temperatures would be like (and not having brought a wetsuit), this was a potential opportunity for things to start badly. We both opted to throw an extra warm layer in our packs - because PFDs and packs were mandatory for the section - to change straight into if needed at the swim exit. Fortunately, that turned out to be unnecessary as the water was around 15°C, and a nice steady breast stroke - because it's difficult to do much else efficiently in a PFD - got us to the end in decent time.

I'd looked back a few times to see a faint look of panic on Paul's face, but it turned out it was just because his bike helmet was being pushed over his eyes by his pack. 'Why was he wearing his bike helmet for a swim?' I hear you say?  Helmets were mandatory for the entire race, including runs and swims, which seems odd but actually saves some time.

The other thing that saved us a little time was essentially spending half the day wearing our PFDs, since the swim was followed by a short trail run (but without an official transition) so you had to run in them, then came a short bike into a canoe, initially with the bikes in the canoe to a drop-off point, then a long canoe - so it was easier to keep them on rather than swapping a race bib backwards and forwards.  I'm not sure I've ever spent over half a day's racing in my BA, so I'm glad it's comfortable.

The next river canoe section was one of my favourite of the race, a beautiful section of the Kipawa river, with one hard 400m portage of a major rapid, then a run of one small rapid and 'lining' down two others. Since we don't use open boats a lot in UK races, lining technique is a bit of a lost art and we both almost ended up in the water at a couple of points before we got the hang of it.

Off the river, we got into the last stages of the event, basically a long bike leg with a few out-and-back legs off it, plus a 'special stage' near the finish.  A 3km run, descending some very pretty singletrack trail was a last leg tester before we got to that special stage, which when we got there was excellent.  There were 3 ziplines across a big waterfall on the Kipawa river, two for the racers, one to tow the bikes across. We'd been sort-of expecting this but it was obvious some racers hadn't.

At the briefing the RD was asked if there was a bridge missing on the map as this was in the middle of a bike stage; the sly grin that accompanied the "no" was a bit of a giveaway. We got strapped in and across the river, towed the bikes over behind us, and hit the last CP and bike drop before a short downhill run to the finish line, at a beautiful cabin on the shores of the lake. It would have been an idyllic place to stay and camp, but we needed to get to cleaned up and prepped for Sunday so we headed off, back to the official campsite at Laniel dock.

Day Three - Silos and Speedway

Day three looked simpler and an easier day for Wayne since most of the transition points were 'NAs' - non-assisted drop points where we would leave the bikes, do a short out-and-back run, ropes activity or similar, then hop back on the bike to continue.  It was an earlier 7am start, which made a 4:30am coffee and muffin breakfast a necessity before Wayne arrived to collect us from camp.

We start with a 1km downhill run to the canoes, then a longer paddle stage with a couple of scramble up and down checkpoints - one was originally planned to be a jump from a rock ledge into the lake, but no-one is jumping, the air temperature just a little too low. Off the end of the paddle there's a long carry of the boat, 6-700m from the get-out to the actual transition area, with a CP on a cross mid-way.

Most of the stages are short bikes with a run or activity at the end, Paul took the first rope climb and rope ladder across an old set of railway bridge pilings and we made one route choice after here on the bikes which turned out to be not so speedy. It was a bit of a bushwhack and bog hop, but we're not the only team that took that route and soon we're settled onto an old rail trail that will deliver us pretty swiftly to the crux point of the day, a rogaine section.

I'm looking at the map of this stage a bit nervously: It's not hugely long, only 5km or so, but there's the potential to lose a lot of time as there's only really a trail to the first three CPs. Once they're ticked off, whichever way you take the loop there will be a leap-of-faith control - CP19 - which isn't on a mapped feature and is in an equally featureless area of the map, a rock outcrop in the midst of 100 rock outcrops.

We go anticlockwise and take our time with the navigation, hitting the first cleanly, finding the power line that leads to the next, then it's time to shoot a bearing and hope we can follow it accurately. I watch the compass while Paul counts off the paces, and we're soon in the vicinity, but you could be within 10m of the flag and not see it, so this is hard.  A hint appears when we bump into one of the race camera crew, he won't give us any clues but we know we can't be a million miles off - and eventually there's a shout, someone has spotted the CP, so we punch in and start descending quickly to the last rogaine CP and out. We lost maybe 20 mins here, but with the penalty for a missed CP at 3hrs, that's not too bad - several teams ditched that one and cut their losses, the teams that hit it cleanly were lucky.

From here the course takes a couple of surprising turns. We spin up the road to the next ropes section, which turns out to be a slow ladder climb up and fast abseil down a grain silo at a farm, very typical to this area of Quebec. Wayne's there and chucks us a couple of chocolate milks once I've done my lap of the silo. We head towards Bearn, via a CP in the back corner of a massive lumber yard, to a 'surprise stage' at Bearn stock car track. We've been assuming it will be cycle speedway or something similar, but as we get closer we can hear the revving of engines and see a cloud of dust, and it’s obvious that it involves stock cars.

We sign in, and are told one person from each team gets to do a couple of laps - as a passenger, fortunately - in the car. I let Paul take that one, since he's the captain, and he dons the full-face helmet and neck brace, then climbs in through the window of the car. It's not quite a Dukes of Hazzard entry, and he spoils the moment further by cracking bad jokes with the driver, asking what's on the radio and if he can turn the heating up. The car is a stripped out hull with a roll cage and plating, but the engine is 500hp and the driver is determined to get as sideways as possible in the corners, so the laps are soon done.

Back on our bikes again to the final extra-curricular activity where I get another swim out into a small lake to a buoy, then we run to a community trust orchard where some locals are handing out lovely slices of traybake to the racers. With just one ride and one short orienteering section to go we're nearly home, and being in amongst a few other teams we're all pushing each other and trying not to make mistakes. We make the better choice at one point and gain a couple of places, then promptly make a poor choice slightly later and get passed again - such is the nature of the game. We finally jog into the finish, high-five and hug, and are (I think) really happy with the weekend.

I can't thank all of the team enough; Paul for inviting me in the first place, Wayne especially for being a superstar support crew and making it an amazing trip across the pond to go play, Una and Evie for their extra help and enthusiasm, Cedric for pushing me so hard around the Youth Raid and of course to Endurance Aventure and all of the Raid Temiscamingue volunteers and staff for planning and putting on a great race. Hopefully, see you next year!