Adventurers challenge Mother Nature: They came to challenge Mother Nature in the backwoods of Fort Coulonge but many could not withstand the harshness of her disciplines.

More than 250 competitors, support crews, family, film crews and curious on-lookers participated in Sierre Design’s Raid the North Adventure Race last weekend.

Thirty-nine mixed teams, made up of four competitors each, tested their strengths throughout a 36-hour race, where teams must bike, trek, bike, canoe, trek, raft and bike, in that order, their way across 170 kms of Pontiac’s deepest backwoods.

These “weekend warriors” came from all across north America, paying $1,000 to enter, to challenge themselves in the spectacular wilderness of Pontiac.

Hosted by Jim and Erin Coffey of Esprit Rafting, competitors and race organizers used the facility and staff as their base camp.

The goal of the competition is to be the first team to get all its members across the finish line. The course takes competitors through remote wilderness where they must travel without outside assistance by topographical maps provided by the race committee, with coordinates of various checkpoints, how you get from one checkpoint to the next is up to the team.

Sunday at 2:30, Team Hardwood Hills, from Barrie, Ont., crossed the finish line at Esprit Rafting.
Advertising scam in area: Police are warning business owners to be wary of a Montreal company soliciting magazine advertising in the area.

“It’s borderline fraud,” says Cons. Alain Langevin of the MRC Pontiac Sureté du Quebec.

The “borderline” scam is that a salesman will solicit an owner to publish his/her business card in a magazine. The owner agrees and the salesman will return with the bill and the magazine. The magazine is so poorly done, Langevin described it as “something a child could put together.”

But the scam comes six months or so down the road when the salesman returns with another bill for another ad.

Reports of this scam have been circulating throughout the province.