My neighbor’s daughter left for summer camp this weekend. Two weeks, overnight, no phones, or texts, only letters. The old-fashioned summer camp with platform tents and no air conditioning. I was excited for her and cannot wait to hear about her nine year old adventures.
This morning’s reading reminded me of canoe adventures I was privileged to lead as a counselor on the lakes of Wisconsin. Taking girls, fast becoming young women, out into the wilderness where loons made their home and the clouds reflected deep into the crystal-clear waters. Canoe trips can be much more than just a paddle on the water - they can be a powerful and quiet way to find direction.
Enjoy. (Jean)
WHEN YOU ARE on a wilderness canoe trip, you are almost always pointing toward something--some goal or destination. In the largest sense, that would be the final destination, your take-out point. The end of the trip ( although I always say, ‘It’s all one trip’) But short of that, there are many important goals along the way. That next island, to get out of the wind. That beautiful point that might have the perfect campsite. The high headland with a chance to get perspective--to see where you have been and where you are going. The sheltered bay.
They are all important, a way to keep your bow lined up on where you want to go--so you don’t get lost, or go the wrong way, or just drift into danger. But... very seldom is your bow lined up perfectly. There is always the swaying back and forth with the normal fluctuations of paddling. The necessity to go around obstacles, to skirt islands, to portage around rapids and waterfalls, to simply recover from a strong wind. Or even, sometimes, from getting temporarily ‘lost.’ The important thing is, not to get distracted or discouraged, to have that goal or destination in sight, or just in your mind’s eye, and to keep returning to it. It’s all a part of a journey through the wilderness.
Perhaps our current national/political situation can be thought of in that way. We are in a storm, a bad one. We’ve been blown off-course. We’re having trouble keeping the goal in sight, or maybe in mind. And perhaps even keeping the canoe upright. We’re bailing, we’re steering, we’re paddling. We’re worried. But there are islands up ahead. With one island called the midterms. There are rocky points and campsites. We can reach them. We are not destitute. We have our arms and our backs and our paddles. Our canoes. We have a compass--known as the Constitution--to return us to the right direction. We have good guides and mapmakers from the past, those who charted the way through difficult waters. Their names still resonate along the trail--Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Douglas, King, Anthony, and many more. We have our ancestors who plied these waters through other storms--not just like this one, but bad, with plenty of rough waters.
I’ve been in storms and bad crossings before. Nor’easters and squalls and three-day blows. Lightning bolts that blasted apart sheltering pines. A tornado that took down 40 trees on a small point. Long, hard portages. Rapids and capsizings. Even forest fires. We made it. We ALWAYS made it. Travelers deeply committed to the journey, and to each other, and to getting home safely, nearly always make it.
But there are no guarantees. The trick, the secret... is to just keep paddling. No matter how tired you get. Keep your bow lined up on that point on the horizon, and keep returning to it, again and again, no matter what, no matter how often you’re knocked off course.
But still, it is hard. And there is another choice. To get discouraged, to lose faith, and to just give up. But then you don’t make it. Out of the storm. Or to that beautiful campsite, or back home.
None of our wilderness travelers ever took that choice. I don’t think the United States of America will, either.
Douglas Wood, substack Notes From The Campfire, August 1 2026.
Invitation: “I’ve been in storms before …”
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August Courageous Citizen
Lois Gibbs
What inspires me about Lois Gibbs, who had no aspiration to be an advocate, is that she became one once she knew about how bad the chemical toxins were in her neighborhood in Love Canal. She fought for her own sick child. And, she believed she had to fight for the people who lived in her community.
“The dioxin story is the story of how science has failed to provide us with answers, how corporations control policymaking and decisions in our society, and how government is silenced.”
I appreciate the image of traveling in a canoe through the wilderness by Douglas Wood --- and its parallel to our traveling as a country through this political and cultural wilderness, this storm, that we are in now and seemingly will be for some time. His encouragement to keep paddling is one that I commit to... and to not give up on our nation or its future.