It’s an undeniable good feeling when the warmer spring air meets your lungs. No other season gives me a bigger sense of hope, excitement and joy. It’s when all the time spent scouring maps over the winter months looking for new adventures comes into play, and becomes a reality.
My spring officially starts with my first canoe outing on a lake or river. It doesn’t matter that spring starts in March and I’m typically on a lake in my canoe by the last week of April. When my canoe meets water, it is officially spring for me and it is time to go, go, go.
I try as hard as I can to fit in an ice-out mini adventure. I have a good buddy of more than 20 years, Ryan Davidson, as a partner for planning these excursions out. We sometimes go as a pair, but most of the times we have our good friends Judd Reidel and Rob Brunelle. In fact, if you are wondering what kind of nonsense we get up, you can read about our comedy of errors of a trip last year further on in this edition.
Ryan and I spend, probably, ridiculous amounts of times looking at maps. As with most engaged outdoorspeople, maps are like a soothing remedy for the soul in the cold and dark months. From just one page, you can imagine a trip of a lifetime and help build anticipation. It also lends a secondary benefit of helping imprint the area in your brain and it comes in handy later on if you get turned around and are missing a map. It’s good to know as much about the area you will be exploring before entering and maps are one of the best tools for that. Get your maps out and start looking and enjoy the experience.
I have more than 300 maps. Even I don’t know why, so there is no point asking LOL. I love looking at them. I can’t explain the fascination, and I don’t fight it – I feed it.
Publishers note