editorial
A different kind of
putting on the water. PHOTO: TIM SHUFF
Trading Dreams
to support convinced me that it was time for a career change. I set out to become a firefighter. In a gesture that was both symbolic and nec-
F
essary, I sold my fibreglass Nordkapp to pay for training. Instead of going paddling when our editorial office shut down last August, I flew to Dallas where it was 100 degrees and spent two weeks crawling around in smoke and fire dressed like an oven mitt and breathing bottled air. Te only water I saw that summer came out of a hydrant. By Lydia’s first birthday I was one of 16
lucky recruits with the City of Mississauga. I never planned to become an editor. My first
love was the outdoors, and I’ve always loved reading and writing. When it came time to choose a career in my mid-twenties it seemed like a good idea to make a living writing about my adventures. It turns out freelance outdoor writer is right
up there with astronaut and rock star among the world’s most unrealistic career ambitions— if you ever want to move out of your parents’ house. So I quickly embraced the financial sta- bility and respectability of an editor’s job. For eight years, magazine life treated me
well. I lived in a $400-a-month, three-bedroom farmhouse in the Madawaska Valley. I had a whitewater river down the road and cross- country ski trails out the back door. I went on assignments to Point Pelee, Georgian Bay, the Queen Charlotte Islands, Vancouver Island and Newfoundland. I got invitations to kayak in Belize, Alaska and Fiji. Kayaking was my benchmark for the good
life and working in the paddling industry helped keep my life in balance. I set my own
4 ADVENTURE KAYAK | SUMMER/FALL 2010
hours, worked from anywhere I pleased, got unlimited access to new gear, and spent all my office time doing what normal employ- ers would consider daydreaming: making lists of kayak adventure trips of a lifetime, cruising YouTube for cool surfing clips, and cold calling well-known adventurers to chat about trips. In the last few years, my life accelerated. I
moved away from the magazine office in Palm- er Rapids to join my wife in the big city of To- ronto. I took on more freelance work to pay the mortgage. I started spending more and more time inside at my desk and less time on the water. Te day I turned down an all-expenses- paid media trip to the Philippines, I realized that something had tipped off balance.
Like ballet dancers, sword swallowers, pre-
pubescent choristers and miners of asbestos, it seems that this magazine editor’s career had a built-in expiry date. I will miss corresponding with all of you
readers and contributors about your adventures. And I will miss striving in every issue to come up with a way to put down on paper that feel- ing I get when I leave shore in a loaded kayak. Soon I will replace my Nordkapp. As kaya-
king and writing shift from being my job back to what they were before, a hobby and a pas- sion, I will no doubt keep writing about my adventures for Adventure Kayak. So, this isn’t really goodbye. I’m just moving back to the side of the editor’s desk where I started. Te outside.—Tim Shuff
ourteen months ago my daughter Lydia was born. Te prospect of having a family
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