WILDERNESS TOURS
OTTAWA RIVER CANADA
Year Round Riverside Resort
Raft • Kayak • Mountain Bike Sea Kayak • X Country Skiing
2 AND 5 DAY PROGRAMS
Teen
Kayak Camps
Full Service
Editor’snotes
Paddling Away From the Rat Race By the time you read this, I’ll
have eaten my 33rd birthday cake. It doesn’t seem that long ago my winters were spent pros- trate to a higher mind and my summers free on the water. From final exams to frosh week my only concerns were enough sun- screen and fresh water for the day. But at 33 I find myself liv- ing the rat race I swore I’d leave for other people. One evening, age 25, Tanya and I were camping at the Whitby Yacht Club
on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Camping might be a bit of a stretch; we’d been invited to stay aboard a sailboat in exchange for tales of our journey. After our talk we mingled and answered questions. Afellow got to telling me with unwavering certainty and pompous righteousness that the rat race—from which I’ve been running—is just life. I should get on with it, he said. He also mentioned there was a barbershop downtown, in case I was wondering. The salted rim on the drink he bought me stung my UV-burnt lips. I hope that I thanked him politely for the drink and his worldly insight,
insight that tore at my free spirit still awash floating in the swells. I don’t remember what I said, but I do remember thinking of places he could park his Mercedes. Eight years later I’m living what he may have meant as just life. I’ve started
a sometimes very hectic business with looming deadlines. I got married. I’m building a house and therefore signing a mortgage. I’ll admit this is a fine list of grownup things to do, by anyone’s measure. How, you ask, am I coping with all this? I’ve followed a well-travelled path behind the forefathers of sea kayaking
in Canada. Tim Shuff’s feature article, on page 29, about the who’s who of sea kayaking’s early days made me realize that I’m not alone. It made me realize that there is a long tradition of making paddling part of life. The men and women who began the companies that build the boats we escape in just want- ed to paddle, and when life came knocking they, like me and every other pad- dler over 30, built a life for themselves around the water. If that stodgy fellow is reading this, he’ll be pleased to know my hair is
shorter now and my idealism very much alive but slightly more refined. I’m still paddling away from the rat race except my summer expeditions are now divided into daily lunchtime paddles and weekend trips. Which, looking at it at 33, is probably better—salted rims don’t sting my lips anymore.
THE RIVER SHOP KAYAKS & ACCESSORIES
1-800-267-9166
www.wildernesstours.com 4 Summer 2004
Scott MacGregor editor-in-chief
editor@adventurekayakmag.com
Tell us your songs and stories WRITEto:
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52