Editorial
LEFT BEHIND FOR THE LIVING. PHOTO: RICK MATTHEWS
Loss and Legacy
WHEN PRINCESS DIANA DIED, millions of people around the world grieved. Thousands of people she’d never met sent flowers. My friend Dawn Cruchet is a grief counsellor and was invited to host a Montreal-based call-in radio show called Good Grief. After the accident, the station opened the phone lines for three hours as Dawn helped listeners deal with the tragedy. Some callers to the radio show had been through the same
tunnel in which Princess Diana crashed. Other callers had a family member die in a similar way. Some had daughters or mothers the same age. Some just felt instantly vulnerable, because they felt that if it can happen to royalty, it could happen to them. While the world around me grieved for Princess Diana, I remained
completely unaffected, feeling a bit insensitive, and wondering why I didn’t feel this overwhelming sense of loss. Dawn said I just didn’t have any of the same triggers that sparked grief in all those other people, and that Princess Diana wasn’t part of my community. Two years ago I signed up for Google alerts, a service that sends
daily news headlines that contain a specified keyword, like canoe. Every day I receive reports of upset canoes, helicopter searches and body recoveries. Yet even these canoe-related deaths don’t set me off—most of these accidents are in far-away places and involve al- cohol and tomfoolery. However, when I saw the alert and read the news of Herb Pohl
dying on Lake Superior last summer, I shut my office door quietly, took out a pen and began writing in my journal, an exercise usually saved for canoe trips. I hadn’t met Herb Pohl. I’d heard of him of course, he is about
as famous in wilderness canoe tripping circles as one can be. He spent his life travelling—often solo—the routes and rivers most of us just dream about. He was a regular presenter at the Wilderness
Canoe Association Symposiums where he inspired thousands to travel and explore by canoe. Herb Pohl was one of my own and he died on the shores of Lake
Superior, a route I know very well. In my journal I keep a list of things I want to do before I die and I
wrote: “When my canoe is found overturned on a lake somewhere, who will read my three-line Google alert? Will anyone care enough about me to click on the link to read the full story?” If I called in to her radio show, Dawn would say this editorial is
my way of honouring Herb Pohl’s memory. It is my way of making myself feel better about his death, and also about my own mor- tality. By writing this I’m helping his legacy, which makes me feel better about me not being forgotten someday. It’s one of the ways we deal with a loss. It’s the same reason we return to a loved one’s favourite spot or start a foundation in his name. Death makes us realize that life is finite. Yet legacies can live on
forever. A legacy is a gift, something of value left behind for the liv- ing. Look at Pierre Trudeau and Bill Mason, they left us their love of rivers through the creation of the Canadian Heritage Rivers, art, films, books and lore. We’ve all been able to take a piece of their gifts, their love of canoeing and rivers, and make a bit of them our own. I know more about Herb Pohl and his adventures now than I
did before he died. And that, I think, is the point of all this. Death reminds us that life is precious, and shorter than we like to believe. We should take the time to enjoy it. Remembering Herb Pohl will inspire his friends and our paddling community to go canoeing this summer, and that is a gift. It’s been said that people often die as they lived. Herb Pohl died
as he lived, paddle in hand. As a canoeist, if that’s how I’m remem- bered, I’ll be happy. —Scott MacGregor
C ANOE ROOT S n 5
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