Last Search for Solitude

The next day I took an 8-mile crossing in placid, crystal-clear waters. If this was God answering my prayers, I didn’t deserve it. I would continue paddling in straight lines around Islands and the many capes on Manitoulin Island. I did not give a shit, even when a day of surfing ended with dodging through a Boulder Bank.

I don’t know why I was so irresponsible. The need to paddle became manic.  I was numb to risk. I was racing my Garmin.

Or maybe I was just desperate to get away and be alone.

I figured my best chance for solitude would be the next stretch. I had 8 days along the remote Northern Shore of Georgian Bay and up the French River, the ancient trading route of French voyageurs through Algonquin and Ojibwe land, before crossing Lake Nippissing to North Bay.

The going was slow and hard. Lake Huron wanted to show me it was tougher than Lake Superior. When I arrived at the mouth of the French River, I was devastated the park allowed boaters and was covered in cabins. I started bitterly asking myself why I’d bothered with the whole trip. I clung to a small quote stitched together from a monk by the name of Thomas Merton.

What would prompt a modern people to do such a thing?

When we live superficially, when we are always outside ourselves, never quite with ourselves, always divided and pulled in many directions by conflicting plans and projects, we find ourselves doing many things that we do not really want to do, saying things we do not really mean, needing things we do not really need, exhausting ourselves for what we secretly realize to be worthless and without meaning in our lives….

Silence helps draw together the scattered and dissipated energies of a fragmented existence. It helps us to concentrate on a purpose that corresponds to the deeper needs of our own being and what we are called to do.

Early morning on my fourth day in the park, I watched the sun rise and I recommitted to silence in the hope of hearing anew.

August 22-28, 2023

Gallery - French River