There is a lesson in following blazed trails. The pink streamers certainly added a practical quality to that forked trail decision, but it irked my aesthetic sensibility in the woods that day. Those streamers took something away. If we lose the ability to follow blazed trails, we lose certain wisdom of the old ways of the bush. We lose knowledge of a time when more people lived, worked, and travelled in the bush. New materials can change, even improve, some things, but there is something lost in not being able to identify old blazes and not knowing something of the type of folks who cut them and of their times on the land and water.
This book is about following blazed trails back in time, mostly to gain that special wisdom of feeling connected to and energized by places, stories, people, and practices. And why is feeling connected to and energized by old ways, old times, and old-timers valuable? Well, as Canadian ecologist John Livingston used to say about ecology: it is possible to feel “part of a greater enterprise of life.”[3] Or, as educator Peter Higgins has asked, “Is it better to be a small person in a large landscape, or a large person in a small landscape?”[4] Knowing the stories of past travellers and dwellers helps us put ourselves in perspective and find our place in the place, so to speak. As we gain perspective this way, we gain an understanding of this greater enterprise. We enter a larger landscape as a richer self. It is a worthy goal, and one central to this story. The working premise here is that it is very good to be a small person in a large landscape. Thanks for that, Pete.
For over forty years now, I have been travelling, reading, and writing about Canada’s travel heritage. This life passion found a healthy home in Every Trail Has a Story: Heritage Travel in Canada (2005), a book I had dreamed of writing for about twenty years.[5] The dream continues, or perhaps old habits die hard. Since 2005, I have continued to travel, read, and write on Canadian heritage travel themes. I would like to write a sequel, even a series following up on Every Trail Has a Story. While Every Trail focused on the three themes of places, practices, and people, More Trails, More Tales has shifted in focus toward peregrinations, perspectives, and personalities. In all cases, I am following blazed trails back in time, be it the trails of explorers, primary researchers, or energetic friends.
Peregrinations: I have not been a leader of northern extreme expeditions and adventures. Rather, I have travelled readily accessible northern routes and terrain more local to my Ontario home. It has been more wandering with historical curiosity as a major factor: day trips close to home and friendship trips with a “then and now” historical spark of imagination. My trips are friendly, playful outings with a heritage focus. Hardships and big challenges aren’t central. In this regard, whether in the far country or close to home, they are accessible in an “I can do that” way. Some trips here may get expensive, but high-end skills and taking out special insurance policies isn’t my game. Pleasure and gaining insights and comfort in a place are my game.
Perspectives: I have not been a research scholar in one or more narrow domains as historian or anthropologist. Rather, I have explored widely for the intriguing story that is little known. My attractions move me toward the stories that widen people’s perspectives and give us a bigger view of the land in time and space. There is mystery here — could it be that we are ignoring evidence that would rewrite our history? Why do we so readily avoid knowledge of our early settlement trails in our schools and communities? My studies that I wish to share here push conventional thinking to new levels of insight and inquiry. Largely, they involve an inquiry followed by a connection with the scholar or expert who broke the story. I perhaps serve as their storyteller, not that they need my help. Relationship building is a big part of my studies.
Personalities: I have never been a solitary traveller or thinker. Rather, I have learned from a wealth of friends who share in the varied passions of self-propelled travel with trails and tales. Whether it is around the campfire or over coffee at Tim Hortons, like-minded friends with their own specific attentions have informed my experiences and writing. My friends’ stories, with their heritage travel highlights, will be shared with that same “then and now” quality expressed in the peregrinations and perspectives sections.
More Trails, More Tales is a storytelling book. It draws widely from Canadian exploration travel literature and the following academic disciplines: history, geography, anthropology, literature, and philosophy. It is a suitable sequel to Every Trail Has a Story: Heritage Travel in Canada, with new content supported by a shift in terms of its themes.
Why? Why travel to places? Why explore one’s home terrain? Why write about all this? What is the compelling reason to want to be engaged in places and then share this feeling and knowledge? The Swedes have a word that helps, hemmeblind, meaning “home ignorant.”[6] This seems among the greatest travesties. In contrast, what this book does is feel the excitement of following those blazed trails and celebrate the imaginative connection to old ways that inspire and inform the present. The best I have ever heard these qualities captured is by my friend Dave Oleson, who lives with his family at the mouth of the Hoarfrost River in the East Arm of Great Slave Lake (where George Back started upriver to get onto the barrens in 1833). Dave eloquently writes:
I crave a history. I want to weave myself and my own story into the ongoing terse narrative of this place, a narrative I can only dimly discern … the country is full of vague leavings. Old camps in ruin, traps hung in trees, rock cairns on tundra hilltops … things surface … to move through a wild land and know nothing of its human history would be an impoverishment. An understanding of the past enables a clearer appreciation of the present. In a time of rapid change, historical perspective can help to place that change in context.[7]
I share the thesis that we need a historical perspective to help us understand both what we gain and what we lose with change. That small person in a large landscape is really an ever more humbled small person in an ever-expanding landscape. A big part of a historical perspective is an expanding humility. This is to say, a shrinking ego but a widening soul. There is nothing more ludicrous than a humble author, perhaps. Sure, I have something important to share, I think. But the humbling of spirit on the land leaves us with a clearer appreciation. The widening of the soul is that connectedness. Call it belonging, call it being part of the greater enterprise of the Canadian historical experience and being humbled by it.
Finally, following blazed trails is practical and metaphorical. It will keep you on track and keep you imagining the grander track you share in. How did Lawrence Durrell put it? “All landscape ask the same question in the same whisper. I am watching you — are you watching yourself in me.”[8] Those blazed trails on the land and the ones we will travel on together on paper really do whisper. That is, if we really do listen. I hope this book will help humble those who listen. Certainly I am compelled to write as I think about my trips, my studies, and my friends against the backdrop of the grandness of belonging: peregrinations so humble by comparison, perspectives so grateful to those primary researchers, and personalities — a mere sample here — so accomplished with a story to share.
Introduction
Peregrinations
“Not all those who wander are lost.”[1]
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
There is no grand logic to my recreational travels. It is fair to say that my self-propelled travels (mostly by canoe in these pages) are wanderings largely based on wonderings. I follow the whim of a good story, such as Wendell Beckwith at Whitewater Lake. I follow the excitement of friends for a route, such as the Mara and Burnside rivers or Lake Superior’s northern shore. The story might be a pleasant surprise discovered when on the trail and researched later, such as Franklin’s knowing about the Burnside River as a choice route to return to Fort Enterprise, or Francis Simpson’s comments on a near canoe