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Illustration by Mary Kirkpatrick
Nature’s call has grown louder as I’ve aged.
In recent years, I’ve been lucky to answer the call, for the better part of a week. I answer it the way I learned as a child, the way my dad taught me. Starting when I was 10 years old, Dad loaded his canoe with packs, my sister and me, and we paddled into Algonquin Park’s interior.
There were a number of years when I ignored Algonquin’s call, or perhaps it was stifled by life. I was at grad school. I had babies, then toddlers. I just couldn’t. Get. Organized. Dehydrate food. Rent a canoe. My bear spray expired five years ago. It all seemed like too much.
Eventually, my toddlers grew into children. My dad sent me the canoe outfitters’ phone number. My sister reminded me Canadian Tire sold bear spray. It was still too much, even though Algonquin’s call started ringing louder.
My dad and sister started taking my eldest daughter on their annual Algonquin canoe trip. My sister’s kids had been canoe tripping for a few years by then.
Their photos were filled with smiles beside canoes and campfires, rapids and jumping rocks. My dad fishing and portaging with his ancient canvas pack … my dad in his happy place.
Then it hit me … Algonquin was my happy place, too.
I dashed to the basement to see if I still had a rain suit before I could think of excuses to continue to ignore Algonquin’s call.
Bless my family, their back country prowess, their formidable organization. Since I’ve affirmatively answered the call, they’ve kept my family of four safe and sustained in the back country.
My sister, a teacher, posts her itemized Google doc and starts cooking, then dehydrating meals. Dad is a true woodsman; he can have a rope strung for the bear bag, a tarp over the kitchen and a pile of dry firewood chopped before we even have our tent poles out.
Thanks to them, I’ve been reunited with Algonquin’s windswept red pines. I’ve paddled silent lakes surrounded by a dozen shades of green. I’ve dove into cool lakes and emerged fresh, my worries washed clean. My mind has had hours to wander. I’ve felt fuller, calmer, stiller.
With my family’s skills and my husband’s brawn (his nickname is “the mule”), it was relatively easy to answer Algonquin’s call for several years. Then, “the mule” popped his Achilles tendon.
A string of doubts about the summer canoe trip cascaded through my mind. Could I drive my daughters, alone, to Algonquin’s remote north boundary to meet my dad and stepmom? Could I steer the canoe? Could I carry the canoe?
I had driven across Canada, alone, in my twenties, well before Google maps. I was pretty sure I could stern if we kept to smaller lakes that were less likely to become windswept. But I feared carrying a canoe like I had feared childbirth. Plus, flipping it onto my shoulders seemed impossible for someone of my size and strength.
But Algonquin called. And I needed to answer. I hearkened to the fearless independence of my younger self and called Dad. “If we shorten the route and I find a lightweight canoe, the girls and I are coming.”
YouTube provided the needed reinforcement that I was not too short, old or unfit to rocket a canoe from the ground to my shoulders. My sister coached me on technique (and it’s all technique). I chanted my new mantra “commit to the flip” daily.
On our departure day, my husband checked the ropes holding the canoe on the car and waved us off. I told myself that wasn’t a worried look in his eyes.
We met my dad and stepmom at the designated park office 10 minutes ahead of schedule.
I unloaded the canoe from my tall SUV using the ‘short person’ method my brother-in-law taught me and set it down on the lakeshore without a scratch. We loaded in our packs, our pup, ourselves and pushed off on a calm, late-August day.
The lake sparkled. I mostly steered us straight. I couldn’t contain myself and broke into My Paddle’s Keen and Bright within minutes. My daughters groaned, then joined in.
It was a relaxing, cool trip, with toques and gloves in the morning and afternoons warm enough for swimming from our private beach. The girls caught minnows and while my eldest fished with Poppa the rest of us played (a lot of) Hearts. And I committed to the flip. Seamlessly, although not effortlessly.
I acknowledge that trip as the pilgrimage it was. A pilgrimage that got me a few steps closer to knowing that I can answer Algonquin’s call. A pilgrimage back to my adventurous younger self who isn’t extinct, just out of practice.
Committing to the flip was one step, but I knew there were many more. I prodded for details about my dad’s new dehydrated meatloaf dinner. I started paying attention to when he used a bowline knot and how he fit bulging packs into his canoe.
My dad and sister are already planning next summer’s canoe route. I’m planning what’s up next for me. Likely tarp lessons. And trying out that meatloaf recipe.
Beth Elliott lives in Ottawa.