Algonquin Park

I went on my first canoe trip! My friend Bridgette and I have both dreamed of doing a multi-day canoe trip in Algonquin Park, and we both realized that dream. We left Toronto on Friday August 17th and drove up to the park. Just getting there was an adventure in that we encountered 1) a dog loose on the 401, 2) a major fire on Hwy 7 just east of Peterborough and 3) torrential rains all the way from Maynooth to Whitney. But we made it. We set up camp at a traditional drive-in site not too far from the Outfitters Store on Friday night, and organized all the stuff we'd thrown into my car. We both felt very unprepared, but we managed to get our act together and made it to the Outfitters Store on Saturday morning to pick up our canoe and get paddling.


Saturday
We did the unthinkable and paddled up Lake Opeongo to the North Arm. The staff estimated 4-6 hours, and we made it in just under 5. It was a long, hard day, but such an accomplishment!! We both felt invincible!!

Set up camp and got warm and cozy around the campfire.


Sunday
We paddled the rest of Opeongo and did a 2km portage over to Happy Isle lake. Oh. My. God. That is one long portage! We carried all the gear the first time, and then doubled back and carried the canoe together. Camped on Happy Isle.


Woke up to this beautiful morning mist.


Monday
Paddled across Happy Isle, and did a .5km portage over to Merchant Lake. Found an amazing campsite on Merchant, spacious, with a lovely "point" and a view of the sunrise and the sunset.


Once we got settled (see photo!)....

....we paddled over to a 60m portage (yes, 60m) and took the canoe over to Lake Chickadee to look for the only campsite on the whole lake. After much searching (we paddled around the entire lake), we finally located the site. There was no orange sign advertising it's location, and when we got closer we realized there had been a fire, so the site is probably closed to the public for a while. This portage was so easy we had time to stop and take a few photos :)


Tuesday
Stayed at Merchant because we loved our site so much. This was my favourite reading nook.


Paddled the perimeter of the lake to explore. It got very choppy and I got very nervous, but we were ok. Found a beautiful campsite with a long narrow beach. Hoping to go back there someday.


Wednesday
Paddled back to Happy Isle and found a campsite on the island. Had a lazy day, reading, getting screamed at by the local squirrels, doing a photo shoot, etc etc.


Thursday
Paddled back to the 2km portage, and went for an impromptu swim before embarking on the 1.5 hour endeavour. Funny thing is, we changed into our swimsuits out in the open on the little beach right at the end of the portage. Just after changing back into our normal clothes, 3 canoes full of 6 American men came paddling into shore to embark on the portage themselves. If only they'd arrived 3 minutes earlier, they would have had quite the show! After the portage, we waited for the ferry to take back down Opeongo (yes, we cheated, and it was worth every penny!).

Memoirs of a sensei, part three

ACROSS THE WORLD
Memoirs of a sensei
(Excerpts from my journal entries dated August 1997 on the tenth anniversary of my first summer in Japan.)

THREE: Subtle Changes

"Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still" (Chinese Proverb)

August came. My life began to stabilize. People and things began to distract me.

I sang. I found myself at the centre of the musical crowd in town. Accidentally I began singing in public. One night at the pub the guitar was out and suddenly I was singing Simon and Garfunkel to a roomful of strangers. My confidence slowly began to build.

I travelled. I couldn't speak any Japanese, but I travelled with a friend who had been in Saga for 6 months, so I thought we'd be just fine. It turned out that 6 months of Japanese is pretty basic, so we had an interesting (read: cursed) week. I think we spent more combined hours waiting for transportation in various locales than we actually spent travelling to any given destination. But it was fun I admit. And educational. I learned a lot. I learned not to believe Ben when he says it'll be more rewarding to climb the volcano than pay 10 bucks worth of yen to take the tour bus. I learned to look at the map myself rather than trust his sense of distance when he suggests that we not walk down the volcano the same way we walked up because he'd rather see different scenery and the other way down doesn't look much longer. I learned not to believe Kevin O'Keeffe of County Kerry, Ireland, when he says he'll meet you on Wednesday at 5:30 and will split the hotel bill with you. I learned to bring extra cash because when Kevin decides not to show up, you have to split the bill two ways instead of three which was not what you originally budgeted. I learned to book accommodations ahead because we might just spend an entire day travelling to a famous mountainous area in the pouring rain, only to arrive 40 minutes before the last bus heads back to where we came from, only to find out that all the hotels in the area are fully booked except for the ones that charge 100 dollars per person per night. I learned that a frustrating experience like that can be worth it just because of the split-second glimpse of an amazing waterfall en route, that only I seemed to notice. I learned that sunrises in Japan are spectacular. And I learned that in six short weeks I came to regard my little house in Ise Machi as a home, since coming back to it felt so good after my week of travels.

I wrote. I regularly sat on my 2nd floor patio and mused about the world. Sometimes I watched the reflections of the sunset, and sometimes I watched the moon follow it's course across the night sky. I wish I knew the words to describe the awesome works of Nature, but they are beyond my grasp. Nature is the art of God, I think Dante said. I could never actually see the sun setting because I don't have a clear view from the balcony...too many houses...not too mention the huge statue of Buddha overlooking the cemetery next door. But I could see the effects of the sunset on the sky above me. It reminds me of God, who we can't see...but whose presence effects the world around us every day. It also reminds me of God because it has two distinct natures. It is excruciatingly hot these days, painfully hot, but the heat is necessary for the growth of crops. It gives what is needed whether we like it or not. But that violently hot sun is at the same time so magnificent in it's beauty and artwork, the way it rises and sets, the way it changes the image of a cloud or shines through the leaves of a tree. One entity, two personas. As it is with God, who teaches me things I don't want to learn, and leads me places against my will. But only God knows what it will take to grow me, whether it be extreme heat or gentle breezes. And the art produced by God, otherwise known as Nature -- this moonlight I've grown so fond of, the volcano I climbed last week rising out of the water, the tree that has stood for hundreds of years reaching for the sky and refusing to relinquish it's goal, the dark clouds that move so swiftly across a clear sky to bring thunder and lightning and refreshing rain -- all these things I have seen in one week of living, and the time I take to appreciate them changes me in subtle ways.

wandering in the forest

Chris and I took off last weekend. Originally we'd planned to do a weekend away to celebrate our birthdays, but we ended up booking it on the weekend following my last day of work, and also realized that it is our 2 year anniversary of co-habitating! So, we had a lot to celebrate.

We drove up to the Orangeville area on Saturday and went to the Mono Cliffs Inn for lunch. Lucky for us they had 2 veg items on the menu, so we each ordered one and shared. I'm not convinced the salad was full vegan, but it was delicious and nothing bad happened to me after eating it. Chris had a curry bowl. Then we hiked for a couple of hours along the Mono Cliffs trail , which connects to the Bruce Trail ,and ended up at a great lookout pictured below. Parts of the trail were very sandy (strange) so we got very dirty feet also pictured below!






We then drove up to Shelburne, about 20 minutes further north, and found our "B&B" - which was really a woman named Carole who rents out her basement space...but let me tell you, this woman can COOK! We paid extra to have dinner there, and of course, the breakfast was included, and both were terrific organic vegan meals. There are not a lot of places out there that cater to vegan folk, so we were very pleased to find Carole.

Saturday night we attended the Canadian Open Olde Time Fiddle Contest!! You might think this would be all stomping and fun, but it was some serious business! Especially the kids....they were totally into it, and they were amazing!

Also while in Shelburne we stopped to see a "wind farm", pictured below (the pictures don't do it justice).






Sunday morning we decided to strike out and try a new hiking trail, which turned out to be a bit of an adventure. It was part of Boyne Valley Provincial Park, and the trail we hiked (very badly) was the Primrose Loop trail. It was supposed to be about a 2km loop but we were walking for about 3 hours!!! I don't think we did the loop more than once, but we definitely strayed from the blue-marked path! Chris blames it all on The Best of the Bruce Trail book....so if you're ever talking to him about hiking you might want to recommend that book to him and see how he reacts!

As Chris mentions in his blog, getting lost in the forest was a good thing for us because we saw a deer, a turtle, and we almost got run over by some crazy turkey vultures (at least that's what we think they were)....now I'm not so sure because I just looked up turkey vultures and they don't look anything like what we saw....(they burst out of the forest onto the trail ahead of us and ran so fast we couldn't get the camera out in time). These are some of the pictures we did take.





Anyway, now I'm off to Algonquin for another week of wandering in the forest, this time by canoe.....stay tuned!

celebrate good times, woo hoo

My colleague Louise made this cake which I've dubbed "Louise's Triple Layer Coconut and Chocolate Killer Cake" in honour of my last day of work at the Hospice (last Friday). I'm still bouncing off the walls! Delicious! If anyone wants the recipe let me know and I'll beg her for it :)

i'm a lumberjack, and i'm ok

I got up this morning and was shocked to see that the tree which shades our patio has fallen down. The irony is that I hosted book club under that tree just yesterday evening. Looks like the base of the tree is in our neighbours backyard (which I never realized before) and it crashed the fence and has trapped some wires under it too. Hmmm. I think I should give the landlord a call....

Looking straight down from our 3rd floor patio


Coming out the back door of our building, ground level


From my parking spot, the view of the back of our building blocked by fallen tree


The new view from our treeless patio. So sad.

The Power of Healing

As I wind down with my work at the Hospice, and slowly meander my way through the complexity of emotions that are arising within me, I am particularly touched by this essay by Balfour Mount, something of a mentor in the Hospice Palliative Care sector in Canada. He is Professor Emeritus of Oncology and Palliative Medicine at McGill University, and he submitted this essay for the "This I Believe" series at CBC.

To hear him speaking the essay with his own voice (very powerful especially given his current diagnosis of cancer in the esophagus), click
here .


The Power of Healing
by Dr. Balfour Mount

I believe in healing. I am not speaking of physical healing, a person can die healed: what I mean by “healing” is a shift away from anguish and suffering, toward an experience of integrity, wholeness and inner peace. The ultimate goal of healing is to enable us to be of greater service to others and to the global village of which we are temporary trustees.

My thoughts have been shaped by multiple personal brushes with death — a plane crash; three cancers and all that followed those diagnoses; a heart attack; the deaths of loved ones; my work as a cancer surgeon; the privilege of caring for the dying over the last three decades. Paradoxically, the message emerging from these experiences has been about living, not dying. The psyche, it would seem, has an intrinsic tendency toward healing.

I believe healing, like love, celebration, awe and ecstasy, happens in the present moment, free from ruminations about the past and fears for the future. It involves letting go, a leap of faith, “diving not drowning” as Carl Jung expressed it. ALS patient Phil Simmons called it “learning to fall.” We fall from head, to heart; from egoism and defense mechanisms, to forgiveness of ourselves and others. We may thus come to glimpse the staggering potential of our essential selves and experience an awareness of the healing connections that provide meaning, hope and a sense of an inner peace.

I believe healing connections happen at four levels: a sense of connection to self; connection to others; connection to the world perceived through our senses (as with music, or the grandeur of nature); and connection to ultimate meaning, however perceived (God, the More, the Cosmos). While my experience of the first of these — connection to self - is slowly unfolding, I have, throughout life, been enriched beyond measure through each of the other domains. In spite of this, I have too often felt trapped by circumstances — stuck with the ‘Why me?’ ‘Why now?’ ‘What if?’ questions of life.

I believe my challenge is to open to each moment with acceptance; to listen to my intuition; to develop self-reflective skills; to be more gentle with myself; to think small; to give up illusions of control.

I believe healing involves a process of opening, slowing, centering, trusting and accepting. This process leads us away from preoccupation with all that is been lost to a clearer recognition of the potential that remains.

Finally, I believe that I must take up the journey toward healing anew each day. The renowned Jewish scholar, Hillel, put it succinctly, “If I don’t do it, who will do it? If I don’t do it now, when will I do it?”

For This I Believe I’m Balfour Mount in Montreal.