Campfire COMMUNITY | CONTRIBUTORS | EDITORIAL | WILD RICE | CANOESCAPES


GOING BY THE BOOK. PHOTO: RYAN CREARY


[ EDITORIAL ] TRUE STORY


After dinner one particularly harsh evening early this spring, a group of friends and I were sitting around my kitchen table, pining for warm weather, ice out and the freedom to enjoy being outside again without having to think about the cold. Surrounded by half empty bottles of wine and dirty dishes, we started talking about what gets us through unforgiving winters. Cross training. Ski- ing. Climbing. I usually advocate for getting outdoors but this time I moved the conver- sation inside. My go-to has always been to turn to a well-written adventure story. Authors like Jon Krakauer, Jon Muir, Bill


Bryson and Henry David Toreau were dis- cussed around the table. Something lit up inside each of us as we shared vivid memo- ries of devouring the tales, many of our own misadventures


inspired by the fantastic


chronicles we’d read. Te mark of a good book is a memorable


storyline. Te best book, it turns out, awak- ens memories of exactly where you were and


6 EARLY SUMMER 2012


what you felt while you read it. My earliest recollection of just such a true-to-life adven- ture was the story of Don and Dana Starkell. I remember sitting cross-legged on the


carpet of my fourth-grade classroom like it was yesterday. My teacher, Mrs. Hawes, read us the harrowing story of the father and son who paddled their canoe from Winnipeg, Manitoba, to Belem, Brazil. I can’t remember whether the other kids


in my class were as captivated as I was, but I do recall my own wonder at Paddle to the Amazon. I knew that this adventure story was different from Te Rescuers Down Un- der, Te Never Ending Story or Te Goonies. It wasn’t that the story is about canoeing, though I’m sure the book did contribute to my love of paddling. My nine-year-old mind was rapt by the fact that the book is about actual people and places. Te notion that real people could accom-


plish such a feat amazed me. Tese weren’t cartoon characters taking on bandits,


jungles, sickness and outlaws; just a blue- collar father and son from the prairies. Tat’s why books like Paddle to the Amazon are so important. Tey plant seeds in young minds, teaching them that anything is pos- sible and, perhaps more importantly, they remind adults that beyond ambition, you don’t need to be particularly extraordinary to take on a great challenge. Tis year marks the 30th anniversary of


the completion of the Starkell’s two-year, 12,810-mile trip. I picked up a second-hand copy of the book a couple of months ago and dove in. Twenty years after it was first read to me, it still conjures up a mix of giddiness and awe. Don Starkell lost his battle with cancer


in January, but as James Raffan shares on page 19, his stories continue to stir reader emotions. And while few will fill his shoes in the paddling community, we are fortu- nate that there are intrepid adventurers out there who strive to share their stories with us, seeing us through long off-seasons and captivating the imaginations of impression- able fourth graders. Michael Mechan is always looking for books


that inspire, new and old alike. Send your adven- ture reading list to editor@canoerootsmag.com.


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