Audio
Scott McDonald, Director of Education, McMichael Canadian Art Collection
From A Painter’s Country: The Autobiography of A.Y. Jackson
1.84 MB
Camping and canoeing have been my favourite pastimes, and though I was never an expert, like Thompson or McIver, I managed to get around. My technique was to travel light, to take nothing that was not needed. In a country of many portages, it is killing work carrying unnecessary weight. I cut out all canned goods, taking instead prunes, dried apricots, rice, beans, desiccated potatoes and soup powders, cabbage, country sausage, and of course bacon and flour for pancakes. I could always hope to catch fish and find berries. I never carried a rifle. Half the fun in camping is to find a good campsite, and the smooth rocks of Georgian Bay were ideal. There was plenty of driftwood or dead branches, red cedar, maple, or pine, and birchbark to start the fire, spruce or balsam branches for a mattress under the sleeping bag. If there was time I could make a very snug camp, sheltered from the wind and with many good places to swim. On the smooth rocks there was little danger of starting a forest fire.
It is always advisable to get settled into camp before dark. I remember one night we left it too late and found ourselves following the steep shore of a lake in the darkness; thick bush came right to the water’s edge, and a storm was coming up. It hit us just as we found a piece of level ground. We pulled the canoes up on the shore, got our dunnage in a pile, held up the tent with paddles while we got inside; then, when the storm was over, we cleared out the brush and put the tent up properly. We had kept the ground and ourselves dry.