editorial
Live to kayak. Kayak to live.
photo: tim shuff
job to spend more time kayaking and work as
a photographer. Then he did it: quit his job,
the tao of Dave
went to photography school, sold his house,
downsized his life and started freelancing.
Nowadays I don’t get out kayaking as of-
ten as I’d like. But Dave kayaks more than
I fIRST meT my friend Dave when he from Prince Rupert to Victoria: 1,400 kilo- ever. Often he goes paddling with Adventure
was one of the interview subjects for my metres in 80 days. If you do the math, that’s Kayak writer Alex matthews. It seems like
master’s thesis. The thesis was about the reli- an average of just a few hours of paddling every time I phone him, those two are either
gious aspects of the wilderness experience. I per day. We paddled high-volume boats and returning or heading out paddling to the
was looking for people who were passionate carried loads of food. We rested one day out Broken Islands or Clayoquot Sound. Last
about outdoor sport the way other people of three and most days we were off the water summer they paddled most of the west coast
are passionate about church; in a way that by lunchtime. Time off was for reading and of Vancouver Island, retracing a big part of
infuses and influences their whole lives. eating, photography and sunbathing, sleep- our 80-day trip.
I couldn’t have found a better subject. ing and exploring. We could have finished When Alex pitched me a profile of Dave,
Dave is a few years older than me, but we sooner but we went slowly because we didn’t I couldn’t wait to assign the story. Dave is in-
have parallel backgrounds. We both grew up want it to end. every day was quality. spiring because he’s built a life around what’s
in suburban Toronto and escaped the city as I couldn’t have planned a trip like that important. He says that kayaking saved his
early and often as we could. We both stud- without Dave. I would have been caught up life after his accident, because it got him back
ied geography in university, got summer jobs in covering a lot of distance and lost sight of out to the wild where he felt most happy and
tree planting in northern Ontario, and went the goal, which was just to have fun, explore alive and connected. As Alex explains in the
to grad school in Victoria. and live outside. article, going kayaking is harder for Dave
But something happened to Dave along Dave has a clearer sense of his values than it is for most of us (although it’s easy to
the way that sharpened his experience—and than most people I know. He knows how forget when you’re hanging out with him).
probably made him especially qualified to to use time well—on kayak trips and in ev- But he doesn’t let that stop him. He came
speak to my thesis question. A car accident eryday life. close enough to losing his connection to the
broke Dave’s back. When I first met Dave he was talking outdoors once. He’s not going to let it slip
Several years ago, Dave and I paddled about leaving his secure, senior government away again. —Tim Shuff
4 aDvENturE KaYaK | Summer/Fall 2009
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