I've got to agree with you on that one Brantwing; it's the challenges flavour each trip, and it's the tougher ones that burn the best memories, ones you recall long after the scars have faded. I guess each challenge overcome builds the confidence and skills necessary for dealing with the next, more difficult one. That's the part I like. Challenges are exercise for the soul, and like so many of us, when I play with nature, I like her to play full contact.
It's funny, when I think back on my 35+ years of canoe tripping, I first think of my daughters and friends, but then I immediately go back to those times and places where some wicked storm, some brutal weather or some killer portages really had us on the edge. I can remember each moment of being blown down the length of Big Trout Lake, canoe-surfing all the way in the teeth of a gale without doing anything more than steering, capsizing one false paddle stroke away, but don't ask me to tell you where we camped or what we had for dinner. That was one memory burnt in well, let me tell you.
But no matter how much you sugar-coat it, that Phipp's bog was a pig.
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