Butt End by Kevin Callan is a column that regularly appears in Canoeroots and Family Camping magazine.
I love presenting to a crowd of paddlers. I always have. I’ve been standing in front of canoeists for over 25 years, ranging from quaint evenings at small-town libraries to Madison, Wisconsin’s Canoecopia, a show I once described to a U.S. border guard as a Star Trek convention for canoeists.
I used to prepare some sort of script to keep me organized, but gave that up a number of years ago. I’m just too hyper to stick to a script. Besides, a set dialogue doesn’t necessarily work, especially during Q&A period. You just never know what’s going to come up.
Quirky questions are de rigueur: Where do I purchase bear-proof fencing for my canoe trip? How do I convince my canoe partner to carry more gear? Are you the same Kevin Callan that’s a murderer? Is your wife single? And, just recently while presenting inThunder Bay for the Friends of Quetico, How did your schoolteachers deal with your attention deficit disorder?
I’ve been abused by landowners who hated me for promoting a canoe route neighboring their cottage or camp. I’ve been belittled by part-time historians who beg to differ on a point of historic fact. And there was the time I was embarrassed in a packed university auditorium by an outdoor professor and her lawyer friend who threatened to have me sued for writing about her wilderness exploits (even though they were good and honorable exploits).
On another occasion, a government official disrupted a presentation I was giving on dealing with bears and took over the lecture with her counter points because she thought I was telling too many jokes. True story. That was the only time I lost my temper during a show and actually kicked her off the stage.
The embarrassments aren’t limited to cross-examination, either. I’ve mispronounced place names, both forgivable— Chiniguchi and Tatachikapika—and unforgivable—vagina instead of Regina is one of the more humiliating examples. Once, my tongue slipped when I tried to say Reese’s Pieces and the words came out Reese’s penis.
I’ve had my fly down for a 90-minute presentation, and sat on a chocolate bar just prior to the show while wearing beige pants. I’ve even done the classic, pre-show water-splash-on-my-groin-while-washing-up-in-the-bathroom and got caught trying (in vain) to dry my pants with the wall-mounted air-dryer.
Being mistaken for another writer who was wrongly convicted of murder or being accused of suffering from ADD is well worth it though. Why? Over the years, I’ve actually witnessed a few paddlers out on canoe trips that I originally met during a presentation. More than once, they’ve claimed that it was my inspirational talk that convinced them to head out on their adventure in the first place.
The most memorable of these moments occurred after a presentation I gave in Restoule Provincial Park in which I told everyone about a magazine cover story I had just written titled How To Make Love in a Canoe. After the show I wandered back to my campsite beside the water’s edge and spotted a canoe floating in the moonlight. Two heads suddenly popped up and the couple inside yelled out, “Thanks, Kevin.”
– Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, Kevin Callan believes there’s no such thing as a stupid question.
This article originally appeared in Canoeroots & Family Camping, Fall 2012. Download our freeiPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here.
