What I Learned Canoeing

I grew up in the mountains with parents who were nervous about water. Unlike the Ontario kids who spent summers at camp, I barely learned to swim and never went out on a boat.

When I finally went on my first canoe trip, last summer, I was repeatedly chastised for saying “row” instead of “paddle”. My lifelong inability to tell left from right suddenly became glaringly obvious, as was my inability to tell the front (er, bow) of the canoe from the back (which may or may not be the stern).

Now with two week-long canoe trips behind me, here are my life lessons gleaned from canoeing:

I had the most fun when everything looked like it was about to go wrong.

When I nearly tipped the canoe. When my co-paddler jumped out in the middle of the lake and I couldn’t battle the headwind to get back and pick him up. When I did a poor job of tying the canoe and, about ten minutes later, we realized it had floated away…

Sometimes you need to strip off your clothes, jump in, and swim like crazy.

When the canoe floated away, it was my fault, and I was the one ready to dive in after it. Spontaneous swimming, pushing myself physically, and saving the day.

What strikes me is that I loved those five minutes of canoe chasing – and they were completely unlike the minutes I usually surround myself with. I generally barricade myself against anything that could go wrong, take excessive precautions, and rarely jump to be the centre of attention and solve the problem.

What if I did that more? Metaphorically, I’m embracing a little more unexpected incidents of wandering canoes, sunset swims, and jumping into action to make things right. 

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