Large Fierce Mammal

"Morning in a Pine Forest" by Ivan Ivanovitch Shishkin

I’ve never been one to become bored by my own company. I was quite young when I realized that being alone wasn’t boring, and that to truly know boredom I had to be in the company of other people. For most of my childhood, and all of what has so far passed as my adult life, I have been able to get more out of an hour in the woods, or quietly paddling a canoe as far from human habitation as I can get in the time permitted, than I could ever find in a week in the kind of place most people usually regard as a vacation paradise. The wild restores me in a fundamental and primal way that experiencing the greatest of man’s achievements could never even come close to equaling.

That’s not to say that I never include comrades in my wanderings. For many years – and this was before I met Mrs. LFM otherwise she would have been included – in the company of four human friends, I and my trusty Beagle, Jasper, led an annual canoe expedition on Nova Scotia’s Ponhook Lake every Victoria Day weekend, for three to four days, depending on schedules. We lived primitively and well, never sleeping two nights in the same place.

The strongest emotion I remember from every one of those trips was the overpowering sense of freedom that came over me the moment I felt my canoe leave the shore at the start. At that instant, nothing back in the so called “civilized” world mattered. Only the real things mattered, and if you’ve ever experienced what I’m talking about, or if you ever do, you’ll know the sensation without further explanation. I was free of everything artificial and responsible only to a much higher power.

I got to thinking about those trips this week, and slowly a poem emerged. Jasper is not one of the four comrades mentioned. I tried many times to fit him in but the poem fought me until I realized he is to have a poem all his own. Poems are smart, and not to be denied, so in the mean time I will dedicate this post to Jasper.  Here you go. Read and enjoy.

Gather round and a tale I shall weave
Of four comrades who yearly would leave
By canoe to live wild
In simplicity styled
For a calming and healing reprieve.

At the start of each trip every man
Had identical needs from the plan,
For what “civilized” living
Succeeds most in giving
Is a sense you’ve been fried in a pan.

Embracing the wild you’ll soon find
Mind, body, and soul intertwined
As Nature intended,
What was separate, blended,
Leaving only what matters defined.

And such was the case with our four,
From the uttermost start of each tour.
For burnt into each mind
As the beach fell behind
Was this truth: you need less to have more.

Days with no roof but the skies,
With only the truth in your eyes,
And your nose – on your skin,
In your ears, freed from din,
Coming back with a spirit that flies!

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