further upriver — a change in the itinerary. Although agreeable to the change, two participants began drinking heavily, became aggressively antisocial to the point I had to have them flown back to Yellowknife without a refund. As wilderness guide, I have the authority to make this decision — to change an itinerary for the safety of the group, and to remove any potential or disruptive influence that may compromise the group well-being. You can pay seventy thousand dollars to climb Mount Everest, but no self-respecting guide will guarantee that you will ever get to the summit. In my case, these two men attempted to sue me for changing the itinerary; they had paid money to paddle the Thelon River, and I took this trophy away from them.
Then there were the twins — two anorexic, neurotic thirty-two-year-olds who signed on to a whitewater clinic along with the “stalker.” The stalker was an attractive Jewish lady who was married to a doctor. The two of them wanted to join one of my whitewater clinics but she insisted on bringing her friend along, one-half of the twins. Only the twin wouldn’t come without her suicidal sister who was lamenting the loss of her lover by locking herself in her bedroom for a year. And the lover was the best friend of the doctor. The doctor wouldn’t come without his mother and another gentleman friend, and in the end, the two twins had decided to bring along a young man who they had just met. They were to drive to Temagami to catch the floatplane and I would meet them at a designated spot along the Lady Evelyn River. The water levels were high and as it was springtime, the black flies were particularly irksome.
In my opinion, Temagami is a rather unprogressive town. It prides itself in its ability not to attract business or tourists. The docks at the air service, though, did well and pandered to sportsmen who often milled about waiting for flights amidst skids of cased beer, coolers, and fishing paraphernalia. It being the opening of walleye fishing season, the air service was seasonally busy. When my group arrived they had a two-hour wait for their plane. To make the time go faster, the twins smoked a couple of joints to relax and had removed most of their clothing and, after a while, began fondling, caressing, and performing carnal gestures on the strut of the Cessna 185 moored at the dock, much to the amusement of the air service staff and patrons. In no time, half the men of the village had descended upon the air service for the free show. Upon the twins’ arrival in the Wilderness Park, they had still not dressed adequately to ward off the black flies which by now had zoned in on the promise of new flesh to alight on. As they stepped off the plane I made a mention that they may want to slip something on for protection but received a “fuck-you” look of contempt instead. In the least, I asked if they could put on a pair of shoes, which also was received with equal defiance. What they did next actually took me by surprise. They walked over to a slough of muskeg and began rolling in it, coating themselves liberally in the mud, which, of course, was their answer to the problem of biting flies. The trip was going well so far, I mused silently, thinking of how interminably long the week was going to be.
Things got more bizarre. The stalker had insisted that I was her soulmate and that we should be together, and that my wife should be with her husband. The husband by now was taking the brunt of criticisms from his wife, I was trying desperately to deflect the coquetry of the stalker, and the jilted twin who was locked in her bedroom for a year had slipped into a deep funk about life in general and took me to be some sort of power monger. While out gathering firewood, I had returned to the campsite to find a hundred candles lit through the woods during a time when there was a fire-ban caution imposed. Admittedly, I was a bit excited about a potential fire in the dry bush and had the candles extinguished promptly. I was thoroughly brow-beaten for this and paid the price. The one twin wasn’t dealing with the trip very well; the bugs, the heat, the work, the need to wear clothes and shoes, my authoritarianism. The stalker came to me and said her friend’s sister was going to commit suicide and what was I going to do about it. By this time I had just about had enough of the twins so I unsheathed my knife and handed it to the stalker to give to the twin. Nobody saw the humour in this but me.
Oddly enough, nobody died on this trip, whether by their hand or by mine; but some trips have a residual complexity to them, as did this one. The stalker called my wife up after the whitewater clinic and demanded that she get divorced — free me so the stalker and I could be soulmates. Unlike some other wilderness guides who would take advantage of such situations, I had a strong personal code of ethics not to get involved with clients. This situation, however, did nothing to consolidate that mantra with my wife.
People have different reasons for signing up for wilderness trips. Personal reasons, of course, such as being able to meet new friends they wouldn’t naturally meet anywhere else. There are a lot of lonely individuals who use this particular venue to eke out a new relationship, the guide often being the prime objective — married or not. And guides (generally speaking) have this cavalier disrepute of being womanizers. I’ve met other, younger, and mostly unmarried wilderness guides who imbibe in contests to see who can bed the most clients in a running season. The opportunity is rife with desperate, lonely women.
Late one fall I had a call to organize a long weekend canoe trip for a company that sponsored teenagers in transition. I was a little hesitant to take the group just by scanning through their list of requirements which included taking along a body-bag. Granted they had had mishaps on their trips, usually because of poor guiding and cut-rate costs, but I was used to late season guiding. It wouldn’t be difficult.
The counsellor was in her late twenties, a good leader and helpful. That was a good thing because one of the girls on the trip was eight-months pregnant, and teenagers at the best of times were high maintenance. It was an easy route that took advantage of large campsites, big enough to accommodate the twelve of us and four tents. The boys resided in one tent, the girls in the other, while their counsellor and I each had our own tent. After the first night out it became obvious that the counsellor had something else on her mind. I assured her that I was married and didn’t get involved with clients. She stormed off, practically ripping her tent from the ground, the bevy of teenagers consoling her (they were in on the whole affair), none of whom talked to me for the rest of the paddle out.
Invitations appeared more often than I like to relate and I never saw myself as the receptor for such activities, but I was astounded as to the level and extent some people would go to have an affair while on the adventure trail, either with the guide or with another client. It can present some uncomfortable situations and the guide — as perceived by definition of the career — is often deemed “available” simply by brandishing that romantic, free-spirited, and attractive lifestyle. My last marriage was founded on such notions that the guide’s social science was one of liberality and leisure. And it often is, except that a marriage with an ideal, or the promise of capturing that nomadic temperament and boxing it, is surely destined to fail. It’s the trail that is important to the guide, first and foremost; and when the guide comes home he is often temperamental, moody, unsociable, and happy only by planning the next expedition. And the trail beckons, always, as a conduit of freedom.
The wilderness trail either brings out the best in people or the worst. Thankfully, the majority of people I have had as clients made a connection with self, others, and the environment around them. But as forgettable as a string of sunny days, it’s the rogue storm one remembers. The guide does not have the privilege to go home after work; he is committed to these people twenty-four hours each day until the trip is over.
But to what extreme and by which drastic measure can a wilderness guide take in keeping a sense of order. A captain of a boat can throw a man in the brig and he’s safely alienated from the rest of the passengers. On a wilderness canoe trip, in comparison, the guide doesn’t have the convenience of a retention system. I’ve only once had an incident when a psychotic adventurer needed to be subdued. And he was my paid assistant. It was the only time in my career when it was necessary to use a firearm as a solution to a dangerous situation. This particular episode is covered in detail in “River of Fire” later on in the book.
But in some cases the guide is not always right. There are times when the guide is under pressure from time constraints, pure exhaustion, and even peer pressure. Younger, less seasoned guides are often more likely to make errors in judgment than the veterans. In 1977, while I was employed as park ranger, one of the worst canoeing tragedies unfolded on the Ottawa River, within my own district. A group of fourteen students and two teachers (acting as guides), upset