Pierre Trudeau on Canoeing

Pierre Elliot Trudeau was Canada's 15th Prime Minister. There was no fence sitting when it came to his popularity. Canadians either liked or hated him. But, no one could deny his love for Canada, his charisma, and the depth and breadth of his intellect. His death in 2000, resulted in an outpouring of national grief that had never before been witnessed in Canada.

The following is one of my favourite essays from a speech he gave. It was written in 1944 when he was still a young man, unaware of what history had in store for him. What surfaces is the passion and inspiration that would trademark his personal and political being.

I have taken the liberty to edit the piece for the sake of brevity, while, I believe, not affecting the essence of his words. There is a link at the end of the blog to the full text of the essay.

I would not know how to instill a taste for adventure in those who have not acquired it. And yet there are people who suddenly tear themselves away from their comfortable existence and, using the energy of their bodies, apply themselves to the discovery of unsuspected pleasures and places.

I would like to point out to these people a type of labour from which they are certain to profit: an expedition by canoe.

A canoeing expedition, which demands much more than that, is also much more rewarding. It involves a starting rather than a parting. Although it assumes the breaking of ties, its purpose is not to destroy the past, but to lay a foundation for the future. From now on, every living act will be built on this step, which will serve as a base long after the return of the expedition.

What sets a canoeing expedition apart is that it purifies you more rapidly and inescapably than any other. Travel a thousand miles by train and you are a brute; pedal five hundred on a bicycle and you remain basically a bourgeois; paddle a hundred in a canoe and you are already a child of nature.

For it is a condition of a [canoe] trip that you entrust yourself, stripped of your worldly goods, to nature. To remove all the useless material baggage from a man's heritage is, at the same time, to free his mind from petty preoccupations, calculations and memories.

On the other hand, what fabulous and undeveloped mines are to be found in nature, friendship and oneself! The paddler has no choice but to draw everything from them. Later, forgetting that this habit was adopted under duress, he will be astonished to find so many resources within himself.

My friend, Guy Viau, could say about our adventure, 'We got along very well with God, who is a damn good sport. Only once did we threaten to break off diplomatic relations if he continued to rain on us. But we were joking. We would never have done so, and well he knew it. So he continued to rain on us.' The canoe is also a school of friendship. You learn that your best friend is ...... someone who shares a night's sleep with you after ten hours of paddling at the other end of a canoe. How does the trip affect your personality? Allow me to make a fine distinction, and I would say that you return not so much a man who reasons more, but a more reasonable man. For, throughout this time, your mind has learned to exercise itself in the working conditions which nature intended. Its primordial role has been to sustain the body in the struggle against a powerful universe.

A good camper knows that it is more important to be ingenious than to be a genius. And conversely, the body, by demonstrating the true meaning of sensual pleasure, has been of service to the mind: You feel the beauty of animal pleasure when you draw a deep breath of rich morning air right through your body, which has been carried by the cold night, curled up like an unborn child.

How can you describe the feeling which wells up in the heart and stomach as the canoe finally rides up on the shore of the campsite after a long day of plunging your paddle into rain-swept waters?

Purely physical is the joy which the fire spreads through the palms of your hands. Make no mistake, these joys are exclusively physical. They have nothing to do with the satisfaction of the mind when it imposes unwelcome work on the body, a satisfaction, moreover, which is often mixed with pride. Now, in .......nature in its original state (rather than on books, ideas and habits of uncertain value), the mind conforms to that higher wisdom which we call natural philosophy; later, that healthy methodology and acquired humility will be useful in confronting mystical and spiritual questions. I know a man whose school could never teach him patriotism, but who acquired that virtue when he felt in his bones the vastness of his land, and the greatness of those who founded it."

Learn more about Trudeau.Read the full text of his writing.