WHEN TRIPPING ALONE, IT’S EASY TO GET AHEAD OF YOURSELF BY TIM SHUFF


People kept saying I was foolish and stupid and irresponsible


to quit my job every spring to go roaming in a canoe…but come spring, I’d leave. I had no sense of rebellion. I just had to go canoeing.” Where others would choose Shakespeare or Winnie the Pooh, I quot-


ed those words from famed canoeist Bill Mason in my high school year- book. As an earnestly outdoorsy teenager, my dream was to do a solo canoe trip. When I finally went, I realized I’d had no idea what it would be like. I hadn’t yet learned that that’s how dreams are. My chance came in 1989 when I was 17 years old. I had been pre-


paring for years. At 15, I built a 13-foot solo cedar strip canoe. Te day I turned 16 I applied for my driver’s licence. Tat winter I bored my parents with unsubtle hints about what I intended to do with that newly minted licence in my wallet. Tey finally agreed to loan me the family Oldsmobile for three days after exams for a solo canoe trip in Algonquin Park. I felt like a hero driving up Highway 11, the canoe firmly tied down,


Neil Young, David Wilcox and Te Cult blasting on the stereo. I had my own canoe, a car and three days of food and camping gear. I’m free.


interrupted “


Solo 30 n C ANOE ROOT S spring 2008


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