As if in a dream, I paddled out on a still lake in northern Maine and slowly approached a moose that was standing in the shallows across a bay. She was in knee-deep water, seemingly unfazed, but starting to meander toward shore as I paddled closer. With each step, she grew taller, until I was staring at a mountain of an animal, like nothing I had ever seen before. Then she calmly turned into the woods, and she was gone.

This was roughly 50+ years ago. I was a camp counselor, with the responsibility for a group of young teens who I was leading on a canoe trip in the fabled Allagash Wilderness. We had more than 90 miles to go, and a short window of time in which to reach our destination, but even with those concerns on my mind, nothing could have made for a more memorable impression than seeing that moose.

What started as a dream became a nightmare. We became wind-bound on Chamberlain Lake our second day there and ran out of time to successfully finish the trip. I had to make the decision to abort, and have lived with the regret of never having experienced the entirety of the Allagash. It haunted me and was one of the primary reasons I wanted to take the trip we did a few weeks ago.

Canoeing in our Backgrounds

Another reason was a love of canoe camping, something I was privileged to experience even before this initial attempt at paddling the Allagash. As an young teenager, I attended a summer camp in the Adirondacks that sent campers out on canoe overnights every week. These forays were the highlights of those summers: I can’t think of a better way to camp.

At the time, I was fortunate to have been exposed to a Canadian canoe instructor who took issue with the standard American Red Cross canoeing program and pushed us to learn “Canadian canoeing”, a discipline that demanded absolute mastery over a canoe from a solo position in its center. It was like ballet in a boat, but more than that, it promoted the confidence one needs to be comfortable on the water.

Jani learned canoeing in Indiana where she was raised. Her father coached an interscholastic canoe team at Culver Military Academy and she raced canoes at an early age. When her family moved East in 1968, her dad ran National Outdoor Leadership School East (NOLS East) and she helped him run trips, notably on Lake Champlain and some of Connecticut’s whitewater rivers.

It was due to canoeing that we met. I was seeking to learn some river canoeing skills when I contacted NOLS and learned of their course offerings. I took the first available whitewater canoeing course and Jani was one of my instructors….