FAINT FOOTSTEPS, WW2 by G. Harrison: I Build Me a Boat Part 1 (11A)

I Build Me a Boat

[The S.S. Silver Walnut, ready for the toss, at Mackerel Cove, N.S.]

In 2005 I rode a small motorcycle on a short camping trip on the Bruce Peninsula. The following year I rode a somewhat larger motorcycle on a somewhat longer camping trip (about 1,300 kilometres in all) in and around the Ottawa and Algonquin Park region. And in 2007, on a somewhat larger bike (four times larger than the first one), I travelled over 3,300 kilometres on a very scenic journey to Thunder Bay and safely back home to London, camping at a different spot along the north shore of Lake Superior each night.

I grew more comfortable upon a motorcycle with each passing mile and shortly after I purchased my current motorcycle in 2009, the largest bike to date, the penny dropped. I could carry father's ashes to the Atlantic Ocean and fulfill my promise to him with my own hand. I had also grown quite accustomed to making things in my backyard workshop over the years and I quickly took it upon myself to build a container in which to transport and deposit his ashes into the sea. Why, with all my experience, what could possibly go wrong?

I have no doubt had I tried to accomplish the same tasks seven years earlier, shortly after my father had passed away, I would have failed so miserably. I know this because, when I did travel to the East Coast in 2010 with a wee wooden boat strapped onto the back of my Yamaha, I came very, very close - on a hot, sunny afternoon in June - to pitching the entire project into a dark, forbidding place in the woods on Pennant Point. On that day I reached, mentally and physically, an all-time low, and fortunately, subsequently, a high as well.