Follow The Leader: A Canoe Trip 20 Years In The Making

When my son Doug was four years old, we paddled the Petawawa River with outdoor adventure filmmaker, Justine Curgenven. From our trip, Curgenven created her award-winning film, Dougie Down the Pet.

Doug had already been down the Petawawa twice before, as well as another half-dozen whitewater rivers close to our home. We’d been playing in whitewater together since he was in diapers. We’d been on enough canoe trips to develop a packing routine. He was involved in the process. He had a list of required camping gear to go inside his blue barrel. After that, he could take whatever else he wanted. If we could close the lid, it could come down the river.

I always made a point of including Doug in camp chores. Cooking. Dishes. Setting up the tent. I’d ask him to hold the canoe for me until I was seated. As ridiculous, or cute, as it must have looked, I wanted Doug to be part of the experience, not just along for the ride.

We scouted rapids together. We’d discuss which lines to take and why. In the canoe I’d ask him for the strokes we needed, whether his spindly arms and tiny paddle would help move the canoe or not.

Follow the leader

Two years after Dougie Down the Pet was released, we ran Rollaway Rapids, an 800-meter section of the Petawawa that he walked around in the film on account of near freezing temperatures and ice along the shoreline.

The entrance to Rollaway is a series of canoe-swamping waves that can be avoided with a backferry or shift to the right of center. In my excitement, I was shouting for Doug to give me some draws to pull us to the right. Except, dear reader, I’m a righty. Doug paddles on the left.

Grrr, he never listens to me, I thought. But wait. Six-year-old Doug read the river and knew where we were and what was needed. He knew to cross-draw and was ignoring my direction from the stern. I watched his little arms hang on a textbook cross-draw, sliding us between the standing waves on our left and the eddyline to our right. Exactly as we’d scouted.

In addition to all the research suggesting how outdoor adventure improves a child’s physical and mental development, I also—selfishly, perhaps—saw it as an investment in my future. Maybe someday, when I’m an old man, he’ll take me down rivers.

I took this picture at what Black Feather guides call Oxbow Lake. It’s an out-of-the-way banger of a campsite on a forgotten channel the Nahanni River left behind. The man doing the dishes is our lead guide, Doug.

When Doug was 13, we paddled the Broken Skull with Black Feather. He fell in love with northern rivers. At 15, he was offered a spot in Black Feather’s apprentice guide program. Five years later, learning and working from some of the best guides in the wilderness canoeing business, he’s baking us a Dutch oven chocolate cake for dessert.

In my 20s, when I was teaching paddling and guiding, I’d call my dad from airport terminals as I was getting off red-eye flights, and he was drinking coffee and getting ready to go to work. We’d make half-ass plans to spend time together. Go fishing. Maybe take him rafting. But we never did. My dad died having never seen me paddle.

13 Northern River Trips Of A Lifetime

For years, Doug had been bugging me to jump on one of his northern canoe trips. There were always reasons to postpone, bullshit reasons. This was his last of seven wilderness trips that summer, and his third back-to-back on the Nahanni. After this, he would go back to university in a software engineering program with mandatory summer work terms.

It was now or never.

Jumping in as a guest on a commercial trip, I wasn’t involved in the trip planning, of course. Doug did send me a packing list of essentials. He told me I could bring anything else I wanted, so long as I could close the lid on my blue barrel. I smiled, unsure if he was being funny or helpful.

For 14 days, he ensured I did my share of dishes, cooking, portaging and camp chores. He held the canoe for me until I was seated.

Not once did I tell him which strokes to make.

Scott MacGregor is the founder of Paddling Magazine.

This article was first published in Issue 73 of Paddling Magazine. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives.

“But we’ll get together then, dad, We’re gonna have a good time then.” | Feature photo: Scott MacGregor