You never know where life’s going to lead you. If you’d asked me 10 years ago where I’d be living now, I’d have said in a mountain wilderness or on the water.
I grew up in the heart of Toronto, a three-minute walk from Canada’s busiest intersection, the Trans-Canada Highway and the longest street in the world. I spent my first 30 years trying to get away from the concrete. I never would have moved back to my hometown if it weren’t for the woman I love.
Now Tory and I own a house downtown with eight kayaks in the backyard, street parking, a hound dog and a nine-month-old baby girl. I bike to work at a loft office with an art gallery and a Starbucks next door.
For our article about kayakers’ waterfront dream homes, I couldn’t think of any place more inspiring than John and Bea Dowd’s on a remote beach in Clayoquot Sound. Two summers ago, when Tory was two months pregnant, I had the ill-fated idea that this would be a good time to introduce her to open-ocean kayaking. I found myself huddled on a windswept beach in a rainstorm with one wet and nauseous wife.
I’d known the Dowds were in Clayquot Sound somewhere and had a standing invitation from John to stop in, but when I’d called their cell phone from Tofino I got voicemail. So it was unlikely that of all the beaches, we would have found theirs. But we did. The energetic figure happening along with a fishing rod the very moment we landed was the Father of Sea kayaking himself, and very soon Tory was warming up with a cup of tea by the woodstove and I was moving our gear into the guest cabin just as the rain started coming down hard.
That was the end of our travels. We spent three days enjoying the Dowds’ hospitality, their rainforest produce and fresh-caught salmon, while each dawn and dusk I would borrow one of John’s fishing rods and wade with him into the surf to try and stock the larder. Thank you, John and Bea.
When I asked John to write us something for this article, I promised he didn’t have to divulge exactly where he lives and crossed my fingers that he’d say yes.“I’ll check with Bea,” replied John, and fortunately, she agreed to share the story of their little piece of heaven with the world, along with the eight other extraordinary people profiled in the article.
Too often consumer magazines flaunt the aspirational trappings of wealth and fame, like homes with million-dollar views or $300,000 Breguet Tourbillon watches. I don’t want to fall into that trap. This article shows that you can live the dream without a lot of money, because most of the people profiled have downsized or opted out in some way, sought locations or lifestyles off the trodden path. This is something I try to do even living in the city—like Colin Beavan in the book No Impact Man—turning down the thermostat and downsizing my life so I spend less time earning money and have more time for the truly finer things, like paddling.
This is our 10th anniversary issue and I’ve been at the editor’s desk for eight of those years. If there’s any theme that’s kept me inspired for all these years, it’s this dream of the kayak-inspired lifestyle.
You never know where life will lead you, but with a kayak you can always make your home on the water, with a tent in the hatch ready to pitch in the most beautiful places on earth.
Here’s to 10 years of kayak dreams and unlimited million-dollar views, and to all the people who have built a life around kayaking, wherever their homes may be.
This article first appeared in the Spring 2010 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.
