"Kayak Retreat, NL, 2008"

Well today is the start of our retreat at Splash'n'Putt out near Terr Nova Provincial PArk. The weather is what we might expect RDF-rain, drissal, fog. Maybe a bit of sun tomorrow for our river run with either Fergus Coffey or Brian Smith of Pacific Horizon fame. At anyrate we are bound to have some fun and hopefully get some good shots too. See-ya on Monday! I leave you with this:


everything will be okay in the end,

if it is not okay, it is not the end....

unknown

"PM, Paddler"

Say what you will about one of our greatest and charismatic Prime Ministers but Pierre Trudeau had more than a passion for paddling and the outdoors.

Born Oct. 18, 1919, Trudeau served as prime minister from 1968 until 1984, with a nine-month break in 1979-80 after Joe Clark's Progressive Conservatives won a short-lived minority government in Ottawa.

Ever a controversial and much-debated figure in Canadian history, Trudeau repatriated Canada's Constitution, introduced the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, enshrined both official languages in law and established multiculturalism as official federal policy.

This quote by him sums up his love of canoeing.

"What sets a canoeing expedition apart is that it purifies you more rapidly and inescapably than any other travel. Travel a thousand miles by train and you are a brute; pedal five hundred on a bicycle and you remain basically a bourgeois; paddle a hundred in a canoe and you are already a child of nature." -- Pierre Elliott Trudeau

Don't you just feel it though, when you are in a kayak, immersed in nature, well immersed in anything in a kayak, ......just "giddy", with the overwhelming sense of adventure? I know I do.

"Sit-On-Top"

 

Well not really. This is Alex after he just climbed aboard from the water, totally unassisted I might add.

You know you are a kayaker when you can't go over a bridge without looking for water under it.

"Ralph"

On the Bay at Witless. NL. summer 2007

A nature lover is someone who, when treed by a bear, enjoys the view.

"A Little Bit Of Heaven"

This is what I call the confluence of the Williston Lake reservoir. It is where the Parsnip, Finlay and Peace Reaches of the Lake meet. I am about to paddle down the Peach Reach part of the lake with the Mishinchika and Muskwa Mountain Ranges in the distance. June 2001.

Men may dam it and say that they have made a lake, but it will still be a river. It will keep its nature and bide its time, like a caged animal alert for the slightest opening. In time, it will have its way; the dam, like the ancient cliffs, will be carried away piecemeal in the currents. -- Wendell Berry

"Tree Hanging"

As our first winter storm approaches I couldn't help remembering hanging out in my hammock in the trees on a sweet summer day. Vancouver Island well actually Salt Spring Island. Soon god soon. This is a Hennesey Hammock made on Vancouver Island actually. They have a mesh net that covers the top portion and seals it to the bottom part. There is an opening in the bottom that you crawl up into the hammock and turm your body diagonally which helps reseal the opening (seals with velcro). It is very comfortable, off the ground, free from bugs and there is a tarp that protects from a light rain. At night I put an air mattress under my sleeping bag all of which is also turned diagonally. All that is really left to do is to listen for the wind and enjoy the rhythm as you rock to sleep while savoring the sweet smells of the forest and the various hummings of breezes blowing through the branches and the leafs of your bedposts.

You can't be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet. -- Hal Borland

One of my favourite trees on the Island is the Arbutus tree. It sheds it's red bark and lays bare its' flesh which has a red kind-of pomergranite color to it. Very knarly and spectacular. Quite awesome to sleep in. More on Arbutus at: www.bceh.com/arbutus_trees.htm

" Bell Sunset"

Another Bell Island Sunset from St. Phillips, NL.

What, pray tell, would I buy? There is nothing out here that is not free for the asking. Can you buy a sunrise? Is there a price to the exhilaration we feel from the thunderstorm that rages outside? Nature is the truest democracy, and not the richest man in the world is served a grander sunset than the beggar. -- Michael Furtman