By Jen Wirch

The background: 

If you have ever been on a canoe trip, you know that the planning starts with 3 main questions:

• where are you going?
• how long are you going for?
• who are you going with (or will this be a solo trip?)?

For me, the issue has always been ‘who am I going with?’.  Having returned from living abroad 6 years ago and re-immersing myself into camping/canoeing/hiking etc., I lacked ‘outdoor friends’.  I could usually convince my friends and family to car camp but the backcountry was asking too much.

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By Leanne Hennessy

“I arose early in the morning while the sun was still pink in the sky, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and stumbling from the tent. Stepping out onto the pink granite rock shelf hugging the shoreline of Georgian Bay around Hincks’s Island, the cool breeze caressed my face. I closed my eyes and smiled. I took a long, deep breath in. The day was still fresh and new, but it was going to be a hot one, I could tell, as the sun began to rise high into the sky and heat the land. The water was gently crashing into the rocks, with a rhythmic lull that mesmerized me, and I watched as the birds flew effortlessly, gracefully, dipping here and there over the water against a backdrop of an endless, blue sky. I observed the rocky cliffs across the way, standing steadfast and resolute as they have for millennia, unchanging, and wondered about the generations of people who had paddled this route before me, holding their hopes and dreams in their hearts and in their paddles. Suddenly, I knew that I had been part of this story. I WAS this story. I AM this story.

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