Who Goes There

• Posted on June 14, 2009 at 11:22 PM
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Sean, busting my chops on the Noire. I think it might have been a joke about my pants...

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(This is my continuing blog on getting ready for my Missinaibi River trip, which starts next week)

Your choice of travel companions on a wilderness trip is perhaps the most important one you make. A good friend who shares your load, your sense of humour and your chores is as good as a whiney, uptight wuss in your canoe for ten days is bad (though the later can make for a good story... though the story may be about how you bludgeoned someone to death with a tent pole on your vacation).

That's why Janine and I are excited to have Sean, our 13 year old nephew, joining us for the Missinaibi trip. Sean first joined us for a week long paddle down Quebec's Noire River two summers ago. He was not only a fun and able companion, but brought a refreshing view to the experience. On our first night around the campfire, I wrote at length about our floatplane ride into the river - the aerial views of unending forests and waters, the drama of our landing. It had been Sean's first floatplane ride and so I expected a lengthy response when I asked him what he'd thought of the experience.

He looked up at me from under a shock of blonde hair. "Loud," he said, grinning.

Pithy, accurate, Hemingwayesque. I made a mental note to consider "The Loud Plane" as an alternate title to my epic novel about the trip, in case "Noire - A Poem of Air and Sky" didn't work out.

You wouldn't ask just any 13 year old to come on a 10 day camping trip with you. But Sean proved himself on the Noire and has only grown into a more interesting guy since then. He’s still got all the enthusiasm of a young boy and none of the too-cool-for-your-rapidly-aging-ass attitude of a teenager. He’s not the biggest fan of rapids and blackflies, but he signed on for a June trip down the Upper Missinaibi without hesitation and we’re glad to have him.

Only one thing is worrying me - I’m not sure how much Sean will enjoy the 20 hours of driving over the course of two days that it will take us to reach our starting point on the river. I was thinking that I’d try to excite him about it with a vivid description of the interesting historical and geological aspects of the land we’ll be passing through.

But my guess is that, at the end of the ride, he’ll just smile and describe it as “long”.

jm