One of my fondest memories from childhood is a Canada fishing trip which I took with my father. Most of the time, when you hear stories about wilderness fishing trips, they tell about a father passing on skills to his son and teaching him all about the great outdoors. Our Canadian fishing trip was nothing like that. My father knew very little about fishing. He knew very little about camping in general. It was not a fly in fishing trip either. It was not in a particularly remote area. It was actually rather close to civilization. My father, you see, was not the outdoorsman that I wanted him to be. He can not get by in the woods for six or seven days like I wanted to.
The Canada fishing trip was a time of learning for both of us. Before going on the Canada fishing trip, we did months of research. We went to the library and bookstore, buying every book about fishing in Canada that we could find. We learned about woodcraft, fly fishing techniques, building a fire, cooking food in the great outdoors, and canoing. It was all very exciting for us, but we knew that this reading could not make up for actual experience. We have planned this to be the first of many Canada fishing trips, and we knew it would be the hardest. We would have to teach ourselves everything.
The first night on the Canada fishing trip was hard. We got into camp too late, after getting lost for several hours. It was dark, and we barely found the campsite. We were both in a bad mood, and we tried to set up camp as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, we couldn't do it. Someone had left trash all over the campground, and there were wild animals hovering about. We ended up spending the night huddled in the canoe. In the morning, we were both freezing cold and damp. We almost went home, but we decided to persevere. I am glad that we did.
After that early misadventure, the rest of the Canada fishing trip went off without a hitch. We were much more careful in our navigation, and we never got lost again. That night, we actually got into camp early enough to get 10 hours of sleep before the sunrise. We woke up feeling refreshed, and cooked one of the best breakfasts that I can remember. It definitely was an amazing trip.
