Like so many people, I had spent much of my life working obsessively so that life would be better in the future. As a teenager I took a condensed course load supplemented by summer school in order to complete high school a year early. I studied feverishly in university while playing Junior A hockey (which meant twenty-hour bus trips every third weekend) in order to gain acceptance to dental school. After four strenuous years I graduated youngest in my class and returned to start a busy dental practice.
In retrospect I guess it should have come as no surprise that my midlife crisis came early as well. I had hoped my days of sixty-hour work weeks would finally be behind me, but a busy practice had left me tired and frustrated. I loved dentistry, but no matter how many lunches I worked through, evenings in which I stayed late, or “breaks” that were filled with emergencies, there seemed always more to do.
In about 1996 I was beginning to burn out. I wrote a letter and placed it in my top drawer in an envelope labelled “2000.” It was hardly a great work of prose, merely a basic message. When I was to open the envelope in the new millennium, I hoped to find that I was less stressed and was spending more time doing the things that I loved. It seemed my life was slipping by, and if I didn’t make a conscious and concerted effort to take control I felt true happiness would always be a dream for the future.
The message was simple but elusive — spend time doing the things you love and eliminate those you dislike. Among my interests were travel and a wide variety of sports, but a chance meeting with an old friend led to a wilderness fishing trip, and over the course of the summer I came to realize just how much I loved the outdoors. Soon I was introduced to canoe tripping in Quetico Park and found it to be a watershed moment in my life.
I hired an associate, which increased my leisure time and flexibility dramatically. Dentistry became enjoyable again, and more importantly I discovered the time to explore. Canoe trips had become an obsession, and they became the dominant feature of every summer. There is a Buddhist proverb which states that when the student is ready the master appears. In much the same way, I was introduced to Quetico when my eyes and ears were ready to appreciate its beauty. I wanted to experience every aspect of this magnificent land.
My mother laments how this passion for the outdoors blossomed just a few short years after the passing of her father. I have fond memories of fishing with him for walleye and perch at his beloved camp at Whitefish Lake. It was his home away from home for months of the year and a base for mushroom and berry picking and hunting expeditions for duck, grouse, and moose. We were the regular recipients of his walleye fillets, moose steaks, and ice cream pails full of plump blueberries; each one a special treat, the marvellous fruits of his labour.
As a teenager I lost the patience for fishing and seemed always immersed in one sport or another. I regret the missed opportunity of sharing time with a wise and passionate woodsman. More than that, as a parent now I see the tremendous value in grandparent time for all involved. He was such a good soul. He was a great mind with a kind heart, and I know our relationship could have been so much stronger than it was.
My dad’s father and I connected through our love of hockey, and this Blazino tradition has been passed on in a similar manner between my sons and my father. I am well on my way to ensuring that the boys have plenty of outdoor memories with their Nono (my wife’s father). Already there is a photograph of a proud Nono posing behind smiling young boys struggling to lift a hefty stringer of fish. A similar photo from the 1970s is one that my younger brother and I cherish — one of the few I have with a person I wish dearly could join me on a wilderness adventure.
Author with his brother and Nono proudly displaying their catch (1977).
HEAVEN ON EARTH
As with many of the world’s greatest parks, Quetico Provincial Park and its sister park, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, are situated on the edge of transitional ecological zones. Perhaps the park’s most stunning and signature features are its old growth forests of red and white pine that envelop many of the shorelines of the four hundred–plus lakes contained within its borders. For this reason the park is classified as being in the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence forest ecosystem. It lies adjacent to the southern border of the enormous boreal forest region of Canada and not far from the grasslands and great prairies of the North American Plains.
It is also near the headwaters of three main water basins. Just a few miles to the south is the start of the Mississippi River system, while the lakes and streams just east of the park head towards mighty Lake Superior, over Niagara Falls, and eventually to the Atlantic Ocean. The waters within the park itself move west and then north before finally emptying into Hudson Bay and the Arctic Ocean.
I have had the good fortune to visit some of the most incredible places on this earth, including the Great Barrier Reef, the islands of Hawaii, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Banff, and Glacier National Parks, and as breathtaking as they are, I still find myself inexorably biased towards Quetico.
Quetico does not completely overwhelm you with the world’s largest trees, highest mountains, deepest gorges, or unique geological anomalies. Rather, it is a place of intimate beauty where, if you take the time to look, listen, and feel, wonder will be revealed to you in other ways. Rarely will the park immediately wow you, but it is as beautiful as anything on this planet. As my friend Rod MacKenzie likes to point out after a spell of rough weather or a difficult portage, the price of admission can be high but you are always repaid in abundance.
Dawn at Russell Lake.
In the summer of 2011 our family undertook the classic American road trip, crossing the Great Plains and Black Hills before spending an incredible week in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Just days later, the boys and I were off to Quetico with the grandeur of Old Faithful and the Yellowstone Falls still vivid in our memories.
The lakes, rivers, cliffs, and trees seemed noticeably smaller to me, and for a moment I wondered if my view of the park would forever be tarnished, albeit ever so slightly. It was a thought that troubled me for that first day — would the beauty of the lake country now always seem second best? Lying in the tent that night after the boys had fallen asleep I restlessly pondered this question. At that moment a commotion erupted across the small lake that was our home on this day.
A pair of loons began flapping repeatedly and filled the hillsides with their hauntingly beautiful cries. I listened in wonderment for a while and then hopped out of the tent and made my way to a large exposed bedrock just above the shoreline. The sun had already set, but the northern sky was still ablaze with a kaleidoscope of orange, purple, pink, and red. A partial moon was glowing bright and sent a sparkling reflection off the water, capturing the distant pines and the dancing loons in silhouette. No one else was there, just me on that rocky ledge with the loons, the moon, and the dazzling twilight, yet a part of me felt the urge to turn to someone beside me and say, “Isn’t that incredible?”
This was why I had come — not specifically for the loons or the sunset, but for the profound and intimate sense of wonderment that always seems to blossom in the north woods. This is not a place where you simply drive up, see a site, and move on; it is one where a magical event is often waiting for you (and sometimes you alone) at any given time in any given place.
Motorized travel within Quetico and the BWCA (with a few exceptions) is forbidden. This vast area, as with much of Northern Ontario, is made for canoeing. To me, canoeing is by far the most incredible form of transportation. So often I am able to enter a mental state where I am completely absorbed by the elements and movement is effortless.
Everything that is needed for a week or more is contained within the craft, and the entire outfit glides silently through open vistas in any direction I choose. At lake’s end this amazing vessel is easily flipped up on my shoulders and we are off through the forest towards the next patch of blue.
One of Canada’s greatest