Week 6

This past week was our first real outdoor family adventure: a 4 day canoe/camping trip down the Kootenay River!  This is the sort of thing that the sabbatical is supposed to be all about. New experiences, quality family time, connecting with nature, feeling alive (in this case by risking death by drowning or hypothermia).  Maybe the most powerful experience was being without cell service for days. Turns out the world went on just fine without us. And the kids learned that there is in fact life outside of Instagram and SnapChat.

The trip was an incredible success. At no point did we need to alert the park ranger for an emergency helicopter extraction. Yes, some canoes tipped and cargo (gear and human) floated down river to the next eddy, but that was all part of the fun! Thanks to our good family friends who led the expedition, all 4 adults and 7 kids emerged happily and safely from the river 75kms downstream from where we launched 4 days earlier. 

It was truly an eye opener for a family of city slickers like us.  We learned:

• Life is harder without our nanny there
• It gets more painful sleeping on the ground as you get older
• Wine takes the edge off when camping too
• Showers are a luxury that even the kids eventually missed
• The humility of having to “go to the bathroom” in a hole you dug yourself
• But, we also learned that nature is a truly spectacular thing

There were so many great moments and stories coming out of the trip. This will no doubt be a lifelong family highlight and something we look back on with fondness.  Maybe we’ve even started a new annual family tradition.  If nothing else, that would allow us to better amortize the cost of all the new gear we bought…  Next year, Amazon River?