Getting in touch with the wilderness has never been more important—and harder—than in our ultra-connected world. Kevin Callan discusses how to stay untamed in the modern age in this article first published in Canoeroots and Family Camping.
My daughter, Kyla, met the paddlers before me. We were on the last of half-a-dozen portages that measured over two kilometers each. She said she gave them a friendly hello and asked them how their trip was going. I caught up just in time to overhear their tales of misadventure, of choppy waters on Opeongo Lake and too many bugs on the trail. They said were thinking of turning back or cutting their trip short.
“How long you out for?” my nine-year-old asked. They replied, “This is day one of three full days!”
When they discovered this was our tenth day, their jaws literally dropped. They simply couldn’t comprehend this from a young girl dressed in sneakers, Bermuda shorts and a tattered old t-shirt reading “I Paddle, Therefore I Am.” They were in full camouflage fatigues, army boots, knock-off Tilley hats and each had an eight-inch survival knife reaching past his knees. They looked like infantry scouts in a war.
“That’s a long time for a young girl to be out in the wilderness,” one of the men said. Kyla’s response was a thing of beauty. An almost Gandhi-like statement that veteran wilderness paddlers would truly appreciate: “You guys obviously don’t get out much, do ya?” …
Continue reading this article in the digital edition of Canoeroots and Family Camping, Spring 2014, on our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it on your desktop here.
