the last biscuit
So there we were, carting our bags, towels, tent, matches
Clear summer skies
and food for breakfast across the beach and up the river to
swimming hole. We were excited – camping out on our own.
No adults. We would camp by the river and survive, perhaps
By Paddy Moore
having to keep wild animals at bay. Or maybe we’d see an owl
swoop in and silently carry off a rabbit. For sure we would stay
THERE WASN’T A parental “helicopter” to be seen in the up late and see a zillion shooting stars, because there wasn’t a
August twilight. cloud in the sky and it was mid-August.
I didn’t really notice this absence at the time, but looking My mother let us go with no argument. Looking back, I recall
back, it was this lack of surveillance that made the escapade how she used to recount fondly the time she camped with her
so memorable. brother and two
All I noticed friends on the point,
on that warm a peninsula at the
August evening other end of the
was that the beach. When she
resident osprey was young there
was nowhere were no trails to
in sight as my the point, so they
friend Chris and climbed out along
I set off along the rocks at low tide
the beach to the and slept overnight
river. No, all we on a rock ledge
saw were gulls halfway up a cliff.
flying to the So, no battle with
island, probably my mother and our
going home campsite was ours
after a day of for the night, and
scavenging and it was going to be
harassing fishing great.
boats. Boring. And it was,
We were 12 though there were
years old and no wild animals and
we were on an no owl. There were
adventure! In stars, but we didn’t
so many ways stay up all night.
it was like the We woke up to a
dozens of times chilly morning and
we had made made a pathetic fire.
the short trip, from my parents’ log cabin on New River Beach to Our Bisquik never cooked and was completely gross. Inedible.
the jumping-off rock on the small river of the same name that Just as this failure was becoming apparent, my older brother
empties into the Bay of Fundy. But this time the trip felt different arrived to laugh at us (he was probably just checking on us, but
and was different. he sure enjoyed our breakfast fiasco).
I don’t recall why we got the idea. We had just spent a month So, with empty stomachs we packed up and headed back to
at a boys’ camp and maybe we wanted to practise our new- the cabin. I ended up schlepping everything home. Nobody else
found survival skills. But probably not. I hated that camp – all- was carrying anything. The great hopes, the great freedom had
boy goofiness, bad food, rules, unforgiving schedules, and tent collapsed into hunger and humiliation.
mates who barely acknowledged my presence. Though it was But all the way back I thought of the walk out the night
located on a beautiful lake, I was used to the unadulterated before. My hopes for adventure and for something truly
expanse of the beach, the endless possibilities of the Bay of memorable hadn’t panned out. But that feeling of possibility
Fundy at low tide, the playground of sand, tidal pools to search, had gripped me, and it was liberating. That was the thing – the
rocks to climb, waves of the rising tide to jump and surfing! (At possibility in independence.
least that’s what I thought it was. I had a boy’s delusion that I I did not understand at 12 what I know now as a parent: How
was surfing when really I was riding a piece of Styrofoam and great the pressure is to fly a parental helicopter patrol around
giving myself a wicked stomach rash.) your kids, even when they are looking to cut loose. My mother
But most of all our own beach meant freedom. The freedom had the good sense to resist – the skies were clear that day and
to set my own course for the day (well, usually, depending on I am glad, perhaps even a better person, for it.
what my mother had up her sleeve), to pick and choose what
Paddy Moore lives, works and writes in Ottawa. He enjoys time spent
order I might like to do things in and for how long. Camp paled
with his three children and is not a very good helicopter pilot.
in comparison on that point alone.
www.ottawaoutdoors.ca OTTAWA magazine summer/fall 2009 47
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