I love canoeing in Algonquin park! Last time I was there was September of 2006, though. Yeah, the same weekend that record storms knocked down power lines and destroyed roofs all over the damn region. Except on Happy Isle, it was the trees that were falling down all over the place. And the knee-high waves that prevented any hope of escape.
It was my second trip by canoe into the park, and despite the foul weather, I’d happily go again. I’ll just make sure that I don’t camp on any of the islands!
(This year’s trip was much tamer – just a couple of nights on the Au Sable here in good old Michigan.)
Thanks everyone for your replies. I’m not seriously considering upping sticks and disappearing but the idea of living, at least for a while, somewhere properly remote fascinates me. I recall reading about a guy who lived on some forsaken rock in the South Atlantic for a while and the idea intrigued me. Having only ever visited Niagara Falls I must make a proper trip to the wilds of Canada and see for myself.
And it’s not just the wilds that are sparsely populated. I grew up in southern Saskatchewan - flat farmland that’s been settled for a century, but still has a very low population density. Some years ago, one of the local doctors arranged to have a young doctor come out from Britain to join his practice, located about 260 miles southeast from the provincial capital, Regina, and about 15 miles from the US border.
The young doctor never arrived. He landed at Regina, rented a car, and started to drive. Before he got to the town where he was to work, he turned around and went back to Regina. He called and explained that as he was driving, he realised he’d gone over 40 miles without meeting another car. It spooked him, and he decided he wasn’t cut out for the isolation of southern Saskatchewan.
I had the opposite experience when I travelled in India for a couple of weeks. I found myself getting increasingly antsy, to the point where I couldn’t even stay in stores while a friend was shopping. I finally realised that what was bothering me was the people, always around. For the entire time I was there, if I had yelled, someone would have heard me. Even when we had a car breakdown in the deserts of Rajasthan, three guys popped up out of nowhere - not to help, but just to watch.
There was never a time when I was truly alone - and man, that was freaky for someone from the Canadian Prairies.
Northern Piper, I worked with a guy from SK who had the same experience in Germany. Everywhere he went, there were always people. Take a drive in the countryside? People. He had the same antsy feeling - too many people, all the time. I noticed that in myself, too, when we went to a ball game in Seattle - the psychic pressure of being in a stadium with 47,000 other people was…uncomfortable for me. I always feel like I stretch my mental legs out when I go back to the prairies.