tim’s thought property

The Canoe Trip.
What started as a good idea, that blossomed into a rugged outdoors, aquatic camping adventure; has come and gone.
It has become annual now.

This year’s mighty adventure in the great Canadian Shield was four days of paddling and eating and exploring and burning.
Allow me to elaborate.
The group departed the city at 8:00am to drive out to the Whiteshell to get our trip started.
With a sunny weekend ahead of us, I decided to do the un-thinkable: go shirtless.
Now, as a pasty young man, of European descent; I have a rather hairy body. Even though my beard is gone and my head is covered in short hair (another tale shall recount my latest haircut), the rest of my body is covered liberally with hair. So, as skin that is normally untouched by razor or sun, and is covered by clothing tends to be, mine was, white.
But no-not any longer. Now it is a faint, tanned and peeling colour. In the middle of it all, it was a bright red/medium-rare/salmon coloured hue.

The first day was fine, I had canoed and portaged with little hindrance, at one point, Matty and I even jogged our canoe for 300 yards. That made us feel quite powerful and outdoors-ish. Plus, after we started to paddle again, my thighs were recovering and all the sore feeling from the arms was being out-done by the workout done on my legs.
We made camp up on a slopping bank of rock, and started cooking our meal. As it happened, I was the cook (although the “chef”ing was shared by most, not only I) and we made the first of two back to back meals. This time, due to incredible sun, we spent a lot of time in the water. I ended up spending even more of it in the water, because of my pink condition.

We had rain a couple evenings, and some Narnia told around the fire.
We attempted re-fried beans, which took far too long and tasty sub-par in the end. We paddled 24 km one day for a day trip, and I had to cower from the sun, in the mid-ship, with a towel draped on my legs and my arms in the sleeves of my hoodie. I felt like a sun-damaged albino, who had no defence from the UV rays. In some ways I was, but I’d forgotten the feeling of skin too small, and an ever-present heat.

By the time we had started home, Derek’s sunburn had healed a lot more than mine, and he had begun his tutelage of the Rubik’s Cube, a la me. I had discovered that night I had Poison Ivy. All in all, I would say this was the most adventurous trip we’ve had to date, mostly due to the sun. And even though it tried to kill me, the sun did not. I do hope, however, that I smarten up with the sunscreen. Even if I always burn in the sun, it’s no excuse to be so careless.

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-all photos by the illustrious Derek Penner