TUMBLEHOME
|| BY JAMES RAFFAN
Suffering Gladly
The right amount of
MISERY lies somewhere between
John Hornby and instant Hollandaise sauce
SHORT OR LONG, the best canoe trips involve a little discomfort. I’m not talking about John- Hornby-style pain that involves finding cre- ative ways to dislodge mats of hair and bone fragments from your trip mates’ bowels before you die of starvation. Nor am I talking about the pesky irritations of packaged wilderness adventures when the worst thing you can find to kvetch about is Hollandaise made from a mix, or your guide who shows up bronzed and bare-chested in his Speedo to serve you chai tea in your sleeping bag before you’ve had a chance to wake properly and do your yoga. No, the best canoe trips have a level of suffering that’s somewhere in between. For many, the first encounter with canoe
trip suffering has to do with eliminating wastes while outside and within sound, and occa- sionally sight, of others. It’s the kind of thing that reinforces one’s appreciation of the office bidet. Think, for a moment, of purposely leav- ing behind the T.P. to try natural substitutes as a way to connect with one’s inner adventurer. Add ravenous mosquitoes and an unfamiliar- ity with how to speed squat without sullying your new Tilley trousers, and simple bodily functions start to assume a rich new complex- ity on canoe trips. Good suffering can come from almost any-
where on the trail: weather, the midnight pee, sketchy planning, campfire cooking, equip- ment failure, trip mates, fate, chance, airline schedules, incompetence, lack of skill, animals, plants, serendipity, or God, who seems to have an especially capricious sense of humour when it comes to canoe trips. The trick is to travel with enough prepara- tion and resources to ensure that you don’t pull
22 n CANOE ROOTS fall 2006
SELF-IMPOSED SUFFERING IS THE BEST KIND. PHOTO: TONI HARTING
a Hornby, but without so much portable com- fort as to make the trip totally inconsequential. A friend of mine has this whole thing
figured out. He separates “M” days from “F” days, a distinction based on degrees of dis- comfort. F days tend to be fine; but they’re the ones you forget. M days are miserable but memorable. M days are the ones that produce the best stories. A few M days, or at least M moments, are exactly what the best canoe trips require.
Simple bodily functions
start to assume a rich new complexity on canoe trips
I think of a trip where a full set of tent poles
was left behind, forcing the creative use of willow wands and a dozen very soggy nights. I think of boats eaten by whitewater, or shel- ters shredded by wind. I think of cracked fin- gers, sunburned lips and poison ivy where
the sun never shines. I think of spoiled food, animal invasions, and trips when the rain nev- er stops. I think of actually working for hours on a wet windy day to build a fire and make a cup of tea. I think of days—gloriously fright- ening days—without electronic communica- tion of any kind. I think of starkly candid trail encounters with my own stupidity (leading a canoe trip on which someone forgot the maps). This is all generative suffering, won- derfully self-imposed. If there were ever a circumstance to exam-
ine the blessings and redundancies of our lives, it is a Spartanly-packed canoe trip, with a little suffering thrown in for good measure. Though he was not a canoeist, the Trappist
monk and poet Thomas Merton understood this point. He wrote: “The truth that many peo- ple never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignifi- cant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.” Amen, Brother Thomas! Suffer on, my friends.
—James Raffan doesn’t actually have a bidet in his office.
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