really stop in the middle of the forest at mile marker 54 to pick us up with all our gear. This is the train that will take us back to the village of Armstrong Station (population: 220) where we’ll re-supply before leaving on the next leg of our journey. Our group wanders up and down the tracks as we wait. I see how far I can
A
walk balancing on a single rail, Mason naps in a Prospector and our young guide Michael picks a bluesy riff on his guitar. I show the group how to mimic the mournful cry of the common loon and there’s much huffing and puffing into cupped palms. I’m excited to have found the one thing I can teach Mears. When our train rumbles to a halt, we load canoes and packs in a freight
car with the help of a few burly train hands. A young woman in a business suit jumps down from the passenger car, planting her sensible leather shoes amongst a sea of camera bags, Gore-Tex and fleece. “Tickets, please,” she trills. Next thing I know, I’m sitting with a beer in hand in the observation car,
Boreal forest whipping by at 80 kilometers an hour, thinking I’ve certainly never ended a canoe trip like this before.
Our return to civilization is brief. We resupply, and within a day, we’re back in the air, this time spiraling down towards the deep, dark water on the Kopka River system, located along Wabakimi’s southern border. On this route, large open lakes meet shallow narrows. Paddling with Ma-
son in a Prospector, we scout and run everything. I resist my impulse to turn around and watch her graceful stokes. Mears—never short for words—sums up Mason’s ability succinctly.
“Becky,” he tells her, “when it comes to canoe strokes, you write the alphabet while the rest of us are mere journalists.” I’m definitely cramping her style. Mears met Mason while filming a documentary and later had her teach
his wife to paddle. Mears and Mason speak with a reverential respect about each other. “She always knows how to make herself comfortable in any situation,”
Mears adds a short while later. I turn around to find Mason perched on a rock in the pouring rain, cozily clad in layers and rain gear, happily eating her oatmeal.
A few days later Mears is demonstrating how to make a paddle with only
axe and crooked knife under a steely sky. I’m explaining pop culture’s current zombie obsession, putting into context several years of off-the-wall ques- tions from the press. As he gets to work shaping the shaft with the crooked knife, I finally ask
him what I’ve been pondering for days: is bushcraft still relevant? He offers a very practical example for wilderness trippers. “I have a GPS with me, but the first thing that goes into my pocket is my
compass. And before that is the knowledge of the environment,” says Mears. “When you can understand a map and compass you can understand the value of a GPS. But if you start with a GPS you are half blind.” Of course, I agree, navigation skills seem like the foundation for any wilder-
ness adventure. Maybe my question is more abstract—are we losing anything when we don’t use bushcraft? “The wilderness is a place where you become insightful and alert to nu-
ances in the world. You learn to trust your inner voice and that’s something that very few of us have an opportunity to do today,” says Mears. While Mears’ connection to the land may seem like magic to me, he in turn
admires the connection the First Nations have. “This is their place, they know it in a way we never will,” he says. Though Wabakimi looks untraveled, the rich cultural heritage here of the Anishinabe people is thousands of years old. Mears has traveled around the world to learn traditional skills from
First Nations elders and speaks sadly about the old ways dying with each generation. “Once that knowledge is lost, an interface with the landscape is lost,”
he adds. For indigenous groups, the consequences of losing traditional skills and
ways of life can be catastrophic. “Part of their magic is their connection to their landscape,” he says. But does the loss of bushcraft knowledge affect the average city-dwelling
canoe tripper? “It means we fear where we needn’t have to,” says Mears. Lost or broken gear can either be an emergency or an adventure.
40 | Canoeroots WRITER IN THE MIST. “Becky,” Ray tells her, “when it comes
to canoe strokes, you write the alphabet while the rest of us are mere journalists.”
GUIDE MICHAEL HYER OF WABAKIMI OUTFITTERS PLAYING THE BLUES.
frosty morning a few days later finds us waiting near the Allenwater Bridge on the CN rail line. The tracks cut a corridor through Wa- bakimi and across the nation. The occasional freighter screams by while we wait for the VIA Rail passenger service. I wonder if it will
BECKY MASON IN HER ELEMENT.
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