August 29, 2017
Well folks, I’ve been very busy these past few months.
I’ve spent 34 nights in a tent so far this year, gone on countless day trips, completed my first year of J-School, volunteered as a director on the board of the Friends of Temagami, started freelancing for Rapid Media and I’ve written two articles for Ontario Travel. I have grand and ambitious plans to get some more trip reports up on the blog in the next while, but with school and other writing commitments I’m not sure how realistic those goals are. I am, however, very active on Instagram and I’ve been posting daily stories and photos from a recent 18-day canoe trip in Temagami if you want to check those out.
The articles I’ve written for Ontario Travel are about the places I paddle close to home. I know, it’s weird that I live in Toronto considering how much time I spend up north but we gotta pay the bills somehow. Andrew and I have explored many of Toronto’s waterways and there’s definitely something pretty cool about being able to canoe through Canada’s largest city.
Urban Canoeing Articles
The Canoe and the City explores some of the reasons that we and many others use the rivers and Lake Ontario for recreational paddling. Toronto has a rich history of canoe culture that continues to this day through paddling festivals, informal meet-ups and a thriving community of local paddlers.
Wild in the City is all about the places in Toronto we like to paddle and how to access them. The Humber River, the Credit River and the Toronto Islands are favourites of ours for the evenings and weekends we just can’t get away.
So don’t worry! I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth/sold my canoe/been eaten by a bear. I’m just in the process of turning my love for canoeing and writing into an actual job, which is pretty damn cool.
Canoed Temagami in the 70’s and into the 80’s, and reading your trip log sure brings back memories. No permits needed back then. On one of my trips in early June, I ran into three men and a woman from Bear Island, and we chatted for a while. I must have looked pretty chewed up because the bugs were ferocious, and one of the guys asked me, “How do you find the bugs?” “I don’t,” I said. “They find me.” They had a good laugh at that. I’d have to dig up my old journals to remember exactly where that was. In my mid sixties now, (but still very fit, thanks to regular gym visits) I am contemplating one more canoe trip. That one would be to the Franklin Carmichael rock in the La Cloche Mountains, which is not all that far from the cottage my wife and I have on Manitoulin. But back to your trip. It was a nice romp down memory lane for me. Also very nice photography.
Thanks for the lovely comment, Ken. Hope you still get out there as much as possible. I plan on canoeing and exploring Temagami until I’m dead.