On Canoe Trips, Grieving and Celebrations.

Wilderness trips, be they canoeing or backpacking, are a huge part of who I am. These trips always serve as stark reminders of what is truly important on this path of ours. This latest trip was no different.

Living in the Wilderness strips away all the things that society falsely claims to be essential. We are left to focus our attention on eating, moving and shelter. Then, if we allow ourselves, we can feel that we are truly just a thread in an absolutely breathtaking tapestry. We aren’t above it in any way or removed by harmful and artificial means. There’s a way of things... call it Awen, the Tao or whatever you like but when you feel yourself a part of it, Life, as it truly is, makes perfect sense. Staying in the moment is not only essential for your well being but so very easy to do. I always find it so gut wrenchingly ironic this is the life we stole from Indigenous People and so many settlers spend their supposed free time trying to recreate this way of being. Ya, Western “Civilization”... don’t get me started.

This past trip brought a different significance with it. This was the first trip in over twenty years my partner Lynda and I have been on without our daughters. I try and tell people that the most important skill a parent can have is grieving. One of the most difficult things parents have to accept is the loss of their cute little child with the replacement of an adolescent and all that goes with that. On this trip we had to grieve the loss of our travelling companions as their paths inevitably begin to diverge from ours. However, it’s essential that with every change that brings us sadness we put the energy into seeing what else has come with it. This was a chance for the two of us to celebrate all that hard work of those past trips and getting our kids out every single year for extended time in the real world. Well deserved, tear filled high fives all round. Here also was a time for us to reacquaint ourselves with the people we are in addition to being parents and all the deep rooted reasons we began this journey together all those years ago.

Another major theme of the trip was the undeniable fact that we aren’t getting any younger. This was by no means a shock and, in fact, somewhat comforting to be reminded of the changes we experience due to our mortality and the acceptance and adaptations we need to go with them. Being who we are, we planned a pretty arduous route that included over 10 km of portaging through the La Cloche Mountains (one of which was 3 km... of course we had to do this going out and coming back... gluttony and punishment...guilty as charged). However, without the vigor of youth we were able to view these parts as just another wonderful part of our journey and not just a means to an end to blasted through and endured in between stunning lakes (blasting is no longer an option really). This is a lesson that needs to be heeded in all parts of our lives.

Aside from the obvious physical ones, we had all kinds of other poignant and amusing reminders along the way of the inexorable passage of time. This was probably the last trip of this sort for our current pair of aging dogs who, for the first time, went without their usual packs and we gladly carried the extra load to have them along. Or when on one portage my long serving trip shorts just kind of disintegrated... they didn’t rip... just seemingly began to return to their original molecules.

Ya know, I kinda hope to have a similar fate one day on some portage in the future.