The old man and the river
A canoe trip close to home conjures memories of my father at every curve
Story and photography by James Raffan
A THICKET OF BURDOCK and man-eating wild hemp grabs
at my clothing and skin as I push and portage down from the
road. I smell the piquant essence of crushed stems and feel
a few trickles of blood from scratches on exposed limbs. It’s
nearly enough to turn me back, but then I see the river, familiar
and serene, chuckling over pink and grey gravel with a
slight echo beneath Monkey’s Bridge.
I push off from the herbaceous confusion on the shore and
align my canoe in the gentle flow. After weeks of rushing
around to get ready for departure day, my little red Bob’s Special,
loaded with enough provisions to last a week, feels like home.
Savouring the water’s whiffs of creek chub and algae and settling
in to the rhythmic squeak of the seat, my
eyes wander downstream and spot the journey’s
first obstacle: a shopping cart half submerged in
a mid-river shoal.
Last summer, I was supposed to be paddling
a birchbark canoe in mid-northern Saskatchewan
with a guy whose father had done the trip back
in 1939. Only after we mapped out a route along
the Churchill and Sturgeon-weir rivers did I discover
that the legend of the father’s journey was
just that — a legend. Turns out it was a fishing boat, not a bark canoe, with a motor and a Cree guide. These
niggling details notwithstanding, our “reenactment” was going
to be a grand trip.
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But it was not to be. My 89-year-old dad fell ill in Guelph, Ont.,
last June. Despite his protestations to the family to carry on with
our plans, I had no desire to be a satellite phone slave in
Saskatchewan, ready at a moment’s notice to haul my sad and
soggy self back to Ontario. Instead, I decided on a canoe trip
from Guelph, where I grew up, down the Speed and Grand rivers
to Lake Erie. Five days, tops. As exciting as this journey was when
I first did it as a pre-teen boy scout, compared to the wilderness
of Saskatchewan, it was at best a consolation prize. Still, it was
better than no trip, and I’d be close to Dad.
Anticipation and preparation are usually two
of my favourite parts of canoe tripping. They
typically involve fondling maps, drying food,
mending gear and reveling in packcloth smells.
Having done all of that with Saskatchewan in
mind, I simply had to grab a tent, sleeping bag,
rain coat and swim suit — what the heck kind of
tourist trip needs a bathing suit, I wondered? —
and to throw some jerky, Triscuits and a flask of
single malt into a knapsack.
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May 2010 issue
