at the best of times were high maintenance. It was an easy route that took advantage of large campsites, big enough to accommodate the twelve of us and four tents. The boys resided in one tent, the girls in the other, while their counsellor and I each had our own tent. After the first night out it became obvious that the counsellor had something else on her mind. I assured her that I was married and didn’t get involved with clients. She stormed off, practically ripping her tent from the ground, the bevy of teenagers consoling her (they were in on the whole affair), none of whom talked to me for the rest of the paddle out.
Invitations appeared more often than I like to relate and I never saw myself as the receptor for such activities, but I was astounded as to the level and extent some people would go to have an affair while on the adventure trail, either with the guide or with another client. It can present some uncomfortable situations and the guide — as perceived by definition of the career — is often deemed “available” simply by brandishing that romantic, free-spirited, and attractive lifestyle. My last marriage was founded on such notions that the guide’s social science was one of liberality and leisure. And it often is, except that a marriage with an ideal, or the promise of capturing that nomadic temperament and boxing it, is surely destined to fail. It’s the trail that is important to the guide, first and foremost; and when the guide comes home he is often temperamental, moody, unsociable, and happy only by planning the next expedition. And the trail beckons, always, as a conduit of freedom.
The wilderness trail either brings out the best in people or the worst. Thankfully, the majority of people I have had as clients made a connection with self, others, and the environment around them. But as forgettable as a string of sunny days, it’s the rogue storm one remembers. The guide does not have the privilege to go home after work; he is committed to these people twenty-four hours each day until the trip is over.
But to what extreme and by which drastic measure can a wilderness guide take in keeping a sense of order. A captain of a boat can throw a man in the brig and he’s safely alienated from the rest of the passengers. On a wilderness canoe trip, in comparison, the guide doesn’t have the convenience of a retention system. I’ve only once had an incident when a psychotic adventurer needed to be subdued. And he was my paid assistant. It was the only time in my career when it was necessary to use a firearm as a solution to a dangerous situation. This particular episode is covered in detail in “River of Fire” later on in the book.
But in some cases the guide is not always right. There are times when the guide is under pressure from time constraints, pure exhaustion, and even peer pressure. Younger, less seasoned guides are often more likely to make errors in judgment than the veterans. In 1977, while I was employed as park ranger, one of the worst canoeing tragedies unfolded on the Ottawa River, within my own district. A group of fourteen students and two teachers (acting as guides), upset in the middle of the river in June while making a rough water crossing. Twelve students and one teacher died of hypothermia. Instead of waiting for calm weather, or rafting their canoes, the guides made the decision to cross a deadly piece of water just to keep to a tight schedule.
Even experienced guides perish, and this is typically the fate of those who defy their own abilities and common sense. A good guide knows the limit of knowledge and physical capacity that sets personal and group boundaries. Venturing beyond this principle opens up a quagmire of potential tribulations. Climbers often attempt to push their personal limits. Climbing is a completely self-indulgent sport and there are a plethora of famous mountain guides whose bones decorate the fool’s abyss. This happens when the level of risk is greater than the guide’s capacity to mitigate the unknowns … and in the wilderness there are always going to be uncharted and enigmatic trails.
It is said that fear is the mother of safety, and it is fear that intensifies an adventure trip. It is our basic survival mechanism and is an instinctive reaction caused by rising adrenalin levels. On whitewater river expeditions the adrenalin pulses with the current flow; the sound of rapids ahead prompts the heart to beat faster and the sweat to bead on the forehead. The unknown looms ahead. But there is no adventure if there is no risk, and when we tempt fate and step closer to the edge, there will always be an element of fear. A balanced sum of trepidation makes us wary; too little or too much fear makes us stupid. Fear conditioning is a part of the guide’s expected competence as a leader. The guide is expected to be stoic, fearless, intrepid, and responsive to any situation. Anything less could have disastrous effect on the well-being of the group. When anything goes wrong, everyone looks to the guide for a responsible and quick solution carried out with proficiency. And there are times, even for me as a seasoned guide, when fear is overwhelming and you find yourself grasping for a way out that remains elusive and improbable. The once tight ship starts to list to one side and everyone grabs for the handrails. Luckily, there is always a Plan B to put into play to counter all of Murphy’s Laws, or should be, in the guide’s bag of tricks.
I like being a guide. Unlike the role of an outfitter where life can be prosaic and predictable, venturing beyond the line of civilization with a group of eager patrons has a particular appeal to me. It’s not about power, although in the eyes of the client, the guide is often revered as a superhuman empyrean figurehead. Ego aside, the task comes with no shortage of challenges. And it is the capricious nature of the business, the alluring changeable trail of discovery that is attractive. And to see the wilderness through the eyes of those debutants, the children of Nature who view the sacredness of the landscape for the first time, to feel their excitement, to share in the journey in the most primitive way, defines my rationale for loving the guiding life.
FOUR
CONFESSIONS OF A TRAILBUILDER
As a single footpath will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
— Henry David Thoreau
According to statistics, 90 percent of people think trails just happen. They appear inexplicably over the carapace of the Earth. It is one of those incontrovertible realities that go unnoticed, unquestioned … like the fissures in the bark of a giant white pine, the veins on a leaf, they materialize in front of us but we think little about how they got there.
The remaining 10 percent of folk have built a trail, somewhere in their lives, and know something about the disposition and temperament of trail building.
In March of 2007, I attended the Professional Trail Builders Association annual convention. Held in Reno, Nevada (of all places), it was a gathering of eclectic and somewhat eccentric trailbuilders, trail managers, park administrators, and industry representatives flogging the latest in soft-track excavators, gas-powered wheelbarrows and new-fangled hand grubbers. The main casino floor of the hosting hotel was abuzz twenty-four hours a day, non-stop with all the tawdry hoopla that inspires people to throw away their money. Upstairs in the boardroom was a gathering of the clan; bearded, suspender-jeaned trail engineers (old hippies), IMBA (International Mountain Bike Association) bicycle jockeys, and backcountry trail experts. It was an almost comical conjugation of two divergent cultures. In the least, the Reno scene inspired the convention theme, somewhat as a religious experience in the den of iniquity.
The best part about wilderness trail building is the lifestyle.
I attended the conference as a representative trails specialist for a resort I was working for in Muskoka, Ontario — the first J.W. Marriott luxury hotel in Canada. Three years before, billionaire owner, Ken Fowler, asked if I would construct trails in a one-thousand-acre reserve at the resort.
“You’re
