Sold My House and Quit My Job: Time for More Outdoor Adventures



Happy Camper: Sold my house and quit my job

I am 60 years old now, and I can firmly state that I have become very rich in spirit, but not so much at the bank.

A Canadian canoe writer doesn’t make much money. Neither does a part-time college instructor who teaches misfit kids—something I have done for 35 years. The college gig helped pay the bills though, but more importantly, it made a drastic change in this weird world we now live in.

You may have read a past blog of mine about how the Sir Sanford Fleming College administration decided to eliminate countless environmental programs, taking away a good chunk of employment cash for me to pay my bills, not to mention making a bunch of young, lost souls even more lost.

I left the college on my terms, not theirs. It was like when a nuisance bear was trying to take my food stash halfway through a one-month trip down a remote river in northern Ontario a number of years ago. I wasn’t going to let that happen! I kept focused and threw a rock directly at the balls of the bruin and chased him out of camp.

I have no regrets. I have loved every minute of my time with the students and colleagues. But like a bend in the river, there’s always something lurking ahead to alter your course.

Happy Camper: Sold my house and quit my job

I sold my house to give myself a safety net, and my partner of over half a dozen years—Kristine—and I will paddle around this next bend in the river together.

I bought it. I fixed the well and changed the crazy expensive electric heat over to a cozy gas fireplace. I built a canoe rack in the backyard, hung my favourite paddles near the front entrance, and placed my collection of old outdoorsy books on display all over the house. The very first morning, through my bedroom window, I heard a loon call over the calm, misty lake. I was home.

Lots of outdoor adventures have been planned, including an extensive mystery trip in far northern Ontario that my regular canoe buddy, Andy, put together. He picks me up on August 19.

But here’s the kicker: I haven’t a clue where we are going.

He said it was time for such a trip. I have planned and organized pretty much every trip in my life. Now it’s time to move forward while being blindfolded.

He gave me one job—to put together enough beans and rice (and fishing lures) to allow us to be in the backcountry for a few weeks. And I needed to pack an extra sweater because we will be further north than he and I have ever paddled before.

Interesting concept. The thought of not knowing where we are going is seriously driving me bonkers, but I gotta say it is going to be one amazing trip! How could it not?

The Happy Camper: sold my house and quit my job

In the meantime, I thought I’d add a few written pieces about my “house on the hill” to my regular blog while I am away. I lucked out getting this place for my daughter and I after my wife asked for a separation nine years ago. It literally saved my life at the time. Enjoy reading them while I am out doing what I do best—wandering the wilderness.

The first and second segments are both from chapters out of my book Another Bend in the River: The Happy Camper’s Memoir.

House on the Hill

Being a part-time college instructor and a single dad, I couldn’t count on the bank to give me much help toward a mortgage. Following my separation, my daughter and I looked at various places in the city of Peterborough where I lived at the time. We ended up looking at mouldy basement apartments or dilapidated houses owned by drug dealers. Not where I wanted to be.

The Happy Camper: sold my house and quit my job

I started looking outside the city limits and found a place in the small hamlet of Bridgenorth. It was a cottage town set alongside Kawartha’s Chemong Lake. The tiny house was just below my price range and I called my real-estate agent to start the process of making an offer. She was a warm woman. She was in her 70s, had been in the business for years, volunteered regularly at her church, and looked after me like one of her sons. I trusted her. And when she took a look at the place, she said absolutely not! It was high up on a hill, had a broken well, had electric baseboards for heat, a shared driveway, and the owners selling were the neighbours living beside it. But it also had a spiral staircase leading upstairs, and when we scrambled up and then looked out to the sun setting across the nearby lake, she said it had potential and I should make an offer.

It is a peaceful place to live. Osprey flew over my roof, rabbits tried to raid my garden, and there were always incredible sunsets to view.

My daughter made friends with the neighbour’s kid and they spent a lot of time doing what young cottage country kids do: hanging out at the local beach, snow-sledding down the big hill behind the town’s church, and sneaking out during sleepovers to walk through the old cemetery at night.

Reading my old outdoor books on the porch with a wee dram of whisky each night before sundown was my favourite pastime. Now and then I even took time for a paddle on the lake. The public boat launch was only three houses down from me.

Happy Camper: Sold my house and quit my job

In my second year of ownership I had First Nations Elders from a nearby reserve pay me a visit. They informed me that my laneway was the old Native portage leading out of Chemong Lake and asked me and Kyla to join in a celebratory smudge. How fitting. I was living on a portage.

The portage placement gave me an idea. Wouldn’t it be cool to be dropped off somewhere north and then simply paddle home, carrying my canoe and gear back up my laneway from the public launch? It kind of had that Pierre Berton Drifting Home book feel to it.

By the time I had my first morning coffee I had unrolled maps on the kitchen table to see what possibilities lay right outside my front door. I’m a paddler, and the main ingredient that has kept me living in Peterborough and the Kawarthas all these years is the water. There’s lots of water.

A dream was formed by my second caffeine fix — a plan to paddle from the far eastern border of the Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park back to my home in Bridgenorth. It was all possible. I’d paddle and portage through the park, be lifted up through the Buckhorn Lift Lock, and then navigate the expanse of Upper Buckhorn and Chemong Lake. To end it all, I’d put in at the public launch located just across the road from my house and portage up my historic laneway.

The Happy Camper: sold my house and quit my job

It was an epic trip. I brought my dog, Angel, so it wasn’t a true solo trip. She loves canoe tripping as much as I do, maybe more. The five days consisted of 22 portages, close to 50 kilometres (30 miles) of paddling, and four evenings camped out under the stars.

The trip was full of highlights. Catching countless lunker bass while travelling the remote interior lakes of Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park; camping on pine-clad rock outcrops; running wild rapids along the Mississauga River; being flushed through the echoing chamber of the Buckhorn Lock; pitching my tent among the boaters at the Lock, watching families toast marshmallows around the campfire while humming melodies of Garth Brooks. An early, wind-free morning paddling across Buckhorn and Chemong Lakes with a sunrise over my left shoulder and a rainbow arcing across the sky on my right. And ending by portaging my canoe and gear right to my front porch — with a loon call to welcome me home once again.

Part 2 of “Sold my House” Memories

I am still on my mystery canoe trip in the far north. Here’s another chapter of my house stories from my book Another Bend In The River: The Happy Camper’s Memoir.

MacGyver or Mr. Bean

Some of you might remember the show MacGyver. He was a secret agent, known to use his genius-level intellect to make use of common items such as paper clips to get himself out of life-threatening circumstances. Some of you might also remember the Mr. Bean show. Actor comedian Rowan Atkinson describes his character as “a child in a grown man’s body” as he solves various problems presented by everyday tasks and often causes disruption in the process.

Recently I had the opportunity to become a MacGyver; and you’d think that all my extended time in the outdoors would have allowed for that. But instead, I pulled a Mr. Bean.

I started off my normal morning routine. I let the dog out, set up the coffee to brew in the Bodum, then went into the bathroom to have my morning constitutional and a hot shower. Everything went as planned. After that was all taken care of, looking forward to pouring myself a strong cup of java and writing in my journal, I grabbed the bathroom doorknob to exit.

That’s not what happened, of course. A writer’s creative existence, as they say, feeds off what happens around them. The doorknob became loose, and then fell off, from the outside. I was locked inside my minuscule bathroom. Alone — except for the dog, who was now fast asleep outside the bathroom door, snoring away.

I didn’t panic at first. The dog was already walked and fed, and my coffee was still soaking in its flavour. I figured it would only take just a couple of minutes to free myself. I gathered all the tools I could find in the bathroom to fix the problem. A comb, belt buckle, toilet roll dispenser, floss, shower curtain rod, car keys … but nothing seemed to work.

The Happy Camper: sold my house and quit my job

So, I went to work removing the hinge pins on the door. I got the lower one out easily but the upper one was stuck. I bashed it with the blunt end of the hairdryer. I broke the hairdryer. Then I used the metal part of my daughter’s curling iron as a hammer. I was able to smash the pin out. Problem solved — right? Nope!

The hinges were on the inside, which meant the door jammed while I was attempting to pull it free.

About an hour in, I decided to use the last quarter of my phone battery and call someone. Yes, I had my phone with me. So why didn’t I use it right away? As an outdoor writer who has survived countless windstorms, lightning strikes, bear attacks, and several bouts of Giardia, I didn’t want a phone to be my first response to some silly mundane crisis. After all, would I be able to do the same while travelling alone in some remote wilderness setting? Probably not. However, any attempt at MacGyvering myself out of this mess didn’t seem to work. It was time to call in for backup.

First, I called my canoe buddy Ashley. He wasn’t home. Then I went to call my pals at Birchbark Media. But I stopped halfway through the ring tone. Birchbark is the marketing film crew that I’ve worked with, the ones who set me up with an annoying puppet named Gary. I knew they’d arrive with camera, microphones, and possibly a few drones to capture the idiotic rescue, and then share it on their social media platforms.

I ended up phoning another good canoe buddy, Andy Baxter. He and I have helped each other many times out in the wilderness. Thankfully, Andy was home, and he brought some tools. He freed me in a couple of seconds, after I’d been imprisoned in the bathroom for over two hours. Andy even helped fix the door before he left. He also remarked that the entire ordeal was like one of our many canoe trips together.

The whole adventure reminded me of Mr. Bean’s “Room 426” episode. I’ve mended a broken canoe with duct tape, fixed a stuck tent zipper with Vaseline, and carved my own paddle out of a cedar tree — but I couldn’t escape my own bathroom with a broken hair dryer or a curling iron.

Of course, MacGyver was known to always carry a Swiss Army knife with him. All I had working for me was a canoe partner who was willing to answer my call at a moment’s notice. And I’m okay with that.

Watch part one, two, three and four of “Paddling Home: A Solo Canoe Trip Through the Kawarthas” on the KCHappyCamper YouTube Channel.

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