View topic - Good memories of departed canoeing companions

Some years ago our daughter pointed something out to us. She said that there are often little things that remind us of good friends that have passed on. The trigger that brings on the memory is sometimes something trivial- a sound, a sight, a taste, a smell….
She has been collecting examples and writing about them.
Does something about a canoe trip bring back a pleasant memory of one of your old friends?
I use a tumpline on my canoe on portages. I recall the smiling face of my next door neighbor from more than 40 years ago. He had grown up in the north, paddled out to Hudson Bay. When I knew him he couldn’t go canoeing anymore. I never paddled with him. Instead he helped us out as we were planning our trips. He had a long tumpline made and gave it to me. “Don’t try to do a long portage without it”, he said. I haven’t.
What are your stories?

I think this is a great question. The first one that comes to mind isn't canoeing specific but is camping. Does anyone remember - or better yet - still have a set of Tupperware coffee mugs? The brown one was always my grandmothers. Her birthday was mid-September so we'd always have her birthday part up at Kilbear.

I don't have a set of the Tupperware mugs, but we do have the tall glasses from the same time period at the cottage. In the last couple of years I've found myself calling dibs on the brown one because it reminds me of Grandma.

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My Mother - Spring Peepers, she always go so excited over them.
One of my coaches and many of us mocked his accent "Let's go boating"
And few few past racers that were younger than me, on our times on the rivers.
But a special one, he is still alive, he was a great supporter of the young paddlers, but he was also a Birder, and a joke I still use "Petit oiseau" Little birdy As he would point at a bird, and you would say what kind is that
Too many to mention, that what happens when you paddle a lot of places
But it is all good!

Jeff

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Choosing to save a river is more often an act of passion than of careful calculation. You make the choice because the river has touched your life in an intimate and irreversible way, because you are unwilling to accept its loss. — (David Bolling, Ho

John died of brain cancer after 9 trips with our gang....he was the worst card player I have ever seen. We play a lot of cards on trips....when someone mentions playing "Hearts", I always think of John with a smile....

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Dave

"The way of a canoe is the way of the wilderness, and of a freedom almost forgotten." Sigurd Olson, 1956

Tom MacKenzie.
A mentor instructor and for 19 years a dear friend

Brown Tupperware mug
Spring Peepers
A card game of Hearts

Isn't it strange how these little things bring back a little bit of joy when you remember your old friend. Just the sort of thing I wanted.
Jim

Not canoe tripping but car camping.... My grandmother got a new Coleman airbed for our trip (one of the new style plastic ones) while the rest of us were stuck with our old rubber airbeds. We were quite jealous of her until we heard a loud bang in the night of the baffles ripping out of the inside of her airbed and she was left with what looked like a massive beach ball in her tent. I think of her and laugh every time I inflate an airbed. I miss her camping spaghetti night.

Splake - I still have a set of those tupperware mugs and use them while car camping with the family. I'm pretty sure they are older than me.

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My father passed on shortly after I got into canoeing and a year later after his estate cleared all the lawyers there was a small amount of money for each of the kids - like $5K or something like that. I bought a brand new canoe and a bunch of really good gear. Every time I use it - especially when taking my own kids out and enjoying the wilderness with them - I think of my dear old pop.

Pop tried his entire life to get us kids interested in outdoors and nature. He eventually succeeded