Canoeing

A Romp in the Wilderness and Why I still Cry at Night

There was a time in my life, not too long ago, during which I had an appreciation if not a love for nature.  I enjoyed walking in Rim Park or spending time on our boat, the Shunpiker, on Georgian Bay.  Winter walks in the Schneider Woods were all pleasant highlights in my life.  Nature can be spiritual, like a delicate dawn, over a log strewn foggy beach near Tofino, or a walk in the magnificent Redwood forests of Northern California. 

 Nature is also pure hell.  Let me tell you about a canoe trip I recently embarked on.  Columbus sailed to San Salvador on the Santa Maria which later was destroyed on a sand bar near Hispaniola. I was in a canoe in Haliburton, but small difference between the two voyages.

As a child I wasn’t exactly Girl Scout material and I therefore never really had an opportunity to learn the skills and earn the merit badges for outdoor survival.  Naively, but with some measure of eagerness I agreed to go on a five day canoe trip with a group of women.  What did I have to fear?  This is Canada.  We have more outdoors than anyone else.  What could possible be so difficult about canoeing in languid waters, loon watching as water drips from the tips of our paddles reflecting the last golden rays of sunlight as we head to the comfort of our snug campsite on the waters edge.  Almost sounds like a travel brochure.

In preparation for my trip I had Rick, my husband, teach me a few basic canoe skills and paddling strokes while at my brother’s cottage in the Muskokas.  On those days the sun shone, life was good and I picked up the techniques like a lab takes to water.  I was poised, I was prepped and I was good to go on my trip.  I was wrong.

Originally I thought that I would make a journal of my trip and make entries during the relaxing times in front of a warm fire as people chatted and sang “Kumbayah My Lord”.   Today in quiet solitude or in the presence of others I take out this chronicle of my travels and it reads like the Old Testament, with tales of plagues and pestilence.

 As I look at my tear stained water logged journal I can make out a few of the brief cryptic entries…tortuous hundred pound packs carried like coolies over treacherous terrain on impossible portages…references to feeling faint and weak tripping on tree roots, slipping and slogging in mud, rain for forty days and forty nights in Biblical proportions …must keep moving…constant rain, building an ark…wet sleeping bags…desperately putting up tarps and laying down ground sheets for survival and to stave off scurvy and hypothermia…stay close for safety, body heat and comfort…keep gathering fire wood…”a camper screams “don’t let the fire go out, don’t let it ever go out…Others singing “Closer my God to thee”…the quest for purifying water and avoiding dysentery and other water born contaminants and bacteria…  I wrote of the futility and discouragement as nine people try to share a single tiny back packer’s camp stove while water (will it never stop raining) fills our dinner bowls. ”Please sir can I have more” a fellow camper laments as she holds up her pathetic water drenched dinner. 

The  on going demoralizing despair of facing wet blankets and why does that lady have all her clothing off sitting on that rock by the water???  What is that all about?  Do Girl Guides do it this way and survive? The last page of my journal is ripped and water damaged.  It contains a partial entry about the outdoor box toilet followed by a plaintive plea for help.

The sun did come  out one day and I  saw the scenery and saw that it was good, but I was truly too weak to care any more  as welts began to form over large areas of my body and I continued to itch, swell and scratch for the next 5 days.  

I am a survivor, but now when I even feel the slosh of water in the bathtub or see a rain cloud forming in the distance I notice a little quiver beginning to form in my right hand, as if I am trying to use my well perfected J- stroke to escape a clear and present danger.  I can not sleep.

 Nature is good and should be kept outside.