“Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.”
― Henry David Thoreau

I can’t help but mourn Winter. The season that never was. The ice that never came. The snow that only briefly hit the pavement. In Toronto it seems everyone is out in droves; we’re window shopping, people watching, sitting on patios, semi-drunk on sunshine. It’s all wonderful and yet….I feel robbed, cheated. Something feels off.

On Friday John and I strap our red canoe to the top of our rental car and head North in search of Winter. Up here the lakes are still frozen. The parks are still closed. We know this, but we’re desperate.

On the advice of a ranger, we find a river we can safely launch from, on the outskirts of Algonquin Park. We unload our gear, text our mothers our exact location, then paddle upstream to a secluded spot on dry ground. We unload our packs, set-up camp, and then sit and watch. We watch as chunks of ice make their slow journey down the river, crashing against one another, then moving onward inevitably. We watch as a thunder storm looms in the distance, turning the sky black, sending hard rain down upon us, making puddles in our tarp.

We watch as everything changes and transforms before us, cause that’s what we’re here for. To feel change. The slow and steady ease into something new. That and to check off these to-do’s on our list:

Finish Edward Abbey’s “The Journey Home”
Cook with a tripod over the fire
Start a fire with flint & tinder
Make bannock bread
Buy a pair of wool socks