Personal Narrative: North Water

There is a distinct moment of acute awareness when a person has an epiphany; a revelation that all the hardships, all the suffering they’ve endured amount to something. I had this moment late afternoon on July 18, 2016. In my modest red canoe, at the mouth of The James Bay, I felt pure recognition. In front of me laid the frightening yet humbling expanse of the Arctic Ocean. I looked back at those around me, noticing the infinitesimal size of our four canoes against the distant shoreline. All of our bows bared the Northwater’s emblem, a miniscule symbol of the large family we had waiting for us back in Temagami. We started from the same place and shared the same physical adventure but each boat contained a different collection of strengths and weaknesses, memories and goals, fears and comforts. For many of us the wilderness embodies an immense amount of incertitude and insecurity but we found value in perseverance: to kill the false being within.

Though we spent sixteen days braving the protest in our muscles, braving the aches for home, and braving the consuming hunger in our stomachs, we will never brave the river. I remember the sheer force of the water, the brilliant white and brown snake gushing against my legs. The power it possessed to devastate our food source and damage our boats was a dire reminder of the little control we had. Nevertheless, with nothing to help us but our hands and our heads, we