Have Kayak, Will Capsize

I am fascinated by the idea of learning to kayak. Practitioners of this sport always look super-cool, whether floating alongside pods of orcas in the Queen Charlotte Islands, or paddling into inaccessible, pristine wildernesses. They always seem calm and competent, as though they could kill a rampaging grizzly with their bare hands whilst simultaneously whipping up a tasty supper of boiled tree bark.

So I want to learn to be one, albeit probably without the qualities of calm, cool or competence. I’m sure I’ll develop scary, ropey Madonna-like arms, whilst still managing to maintain a fat arse. That I will attempt do my first "kayak roll," fail to come out of it and have to be winched, sobbing, from the water by an amused yet scornful lifeguard while my contact lenses bob merrily away downstream. This will all, of course, be accomplished in less than two feet of water and within a yard of the shore. With an array of bystanders watching in open-mouthed fascination.

Despite these forebodings, I have this persistent, nifty fantasy image of myself paddling effortlessly along the shoreline of a pristine lake in my sleek one-person kayak, smiling sagely at fellow outdoors persons wading in the shallows, skimming out to the islets in the middle of the vast expanse, portaging effortlessly over marshy terrain, treading where no human footprint has gone before and generally being a Canadian version of Jane of the Jungle.

Nancy of the North, perhaps.

So what happens when I get out to one of these unexplored islets and discover that my arms have turned into over-cooked spaghetti, and are about as useful? Unless I want to make the front page of the local paper for all the wrong reasons, "Idiot With Tired Arms Calls Search & Rescue for Tow. Parliamentary Enquiry to Follow," then I’ll probably need to do some training. Perhaps a few press-ups before I venture out for a long paddle. I figure ten a day should do it.

Then there’s the problem of my sense of direction. In that I don’t have one. I managed to orient myself when I lived in London because there’s a whacking big river bisecting the city. It was fairly easy to orient myself as being either North or South of the Thames. Up or down. Easy peasy. East and West I figured out by facing in the direction I perceived to be south of the river, and then working it out on my left or right hands.

I suspect this won’t work in the Canadian wilderness, as everything is pretty much guaranteed to be north of the Thames.

A normal map won’t help, as even with a London A-Z Streetfinder I still occasionally managed to get lost, and often needed to orient myself by holding the book upside down. I suspect this is a female thing, as I’ve often seen other women in the street holding their maps at odd angles.

I’m also planning to get a big knife and stylish Ursula Andress style toolbelt to fend off wild animals and hack down trees for firewood when I get lost in the woods.

Should you wish to use my services as a Wildlife Guide, please feel free to contact me. My schedule is, amazingly, wide-open at the moment.

Wild Blueberries: The Ultimate Antioxidant Superfood

Blueberries are the new superfood, packed with the antioxidants anthocyanin and resveratrol. Prevention magazine refers to them as "Youth berries." A craze for blueberry drinks, yoghurts and even dried berries is sweeping the world. But how much bang for our buck are we getting from cultivated supermarket blueberries?

Supermarkets sell punnets of blueberries that on first inspection can easily be mistaken for grapes. Pretty, blue, tasteless grapes. The one and only basket I bought was full of huge, gorgeous, round berries with a rich, full-blown look about them. They appeared perfect but tasted under-ripe and sour. When you're paying up to $6.00 for 150g of berries, this is disappointing.

Because I know how they should taste.

No cultivated berry will measure up to the sweet, intense, tart, sun-warmed flavour of a wild blueberry you've picked yourself. They TASTE like blue should. Like bottled sunshine, fresh air and the smell of sun-warmed leaves.

They may technically be the same species but small, wild blueberries easily outshine the cultivated varieties on the taste and nutritional fronts. In this instance smaller is better.

Granted, those of us who don't live in the north-eastern US or Canada are at a geographical disadvantage and can't afford this level of fussiness. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

But you can now buy packets of frozen wild blueberries in grocery stores. Packed quickly after picking, they retain their nutritional strength and taste and are well worth looking for.

I come from a family of obsessed berry pickers. Blueberries primarily, but we've been known to go foraging for wild strawberries, raspberries and blackberries. However blueberries are the prime target. My father and I have been known to pick 90 litres of wild blueberries between us in Elliot Lake (Northern Ontario) in the summer. On average it takes us three hours to fill a 4-litre ice cream container each.

Armed with water, sun hat, sunscreen, bug-spray, sturdy boots, and several empty plastic ice cream containers, we drive for half an hour along logging roads to the prime picking areas near Elliot Lake. Occasionally we'll pass a tree festooned with a plastic supermarket bag, an informal marking used by fellow pickers to remind them where prime spots are. If you're a picker, you don't need to do yoga. It's a workout in itself, bending, stretching, squatting, swatting mosquitoes; getting so absorbed in plucking a heavily-laden blueberry bush that you forget to move and end up holding poses at which a yogi would blanche.

Then sunburned, but with the hunter-gatherer urge momentarily satisfied, we head home, sit on the deck and clean the berries. This involves picking out any insects that've managed to hitch a ride, leaves and twigs. The berries are then bagged (unwashed) and frozen for year-round consumption. A goodly quantity are kept in the fridge for immediate consumption: blueberries in porridge, blueberries with milk and bread, blueberries with vanilla ice cream, blueberry pie, blueberry muffins... blueberrytastic.

So if you're ever in Northern Ontario, the Eastern Provinces or States and see someone by the side of the road selling wild blueberries, take a chance and go for it. Your tastebuds will thank you.

Watching Bears at the Dump: Ursus Urbanus Canadianus

It is a source of derisory amusement among my non-Canadian friends that I can list going to the dump to watch bears as a highlight of life in a certain Northern Ontario town. Snowstorms, blueberries, bears at the dump. And the occasional chipmunk.

I am not a natural wildlife spotter. I'm usually looking the wrong way when something spectacular hoves into view.

Then someone mentioned a sure-fire way to see bears. Go to the dump after-hours. I immediately had visions of myself standing, trapped and petrified, on a pile of trash, snarling bears circled hungrily, while I protested, "But on TV you're ickle and fluffy....Aieeeee....!"

My lack of wildlife spotting skill is honed by years of practise. I regularly watch for animals on long drives, and equally regularly mistake the same stump for a bear. "Oooh!.....no." There is a big dead tree in the middle of a marsh in the local bird sanctuary. It took me years to realise that what I thought was a very reliable, sociable (yet strangely immobile) owl was in fact, a birdfeeder.

So I had a certain healthy cynicism with regards to my chances of seeing a real, live bear at the dump. The expedition party consisted of myself, my Dad, my brother and my brother's girlfriend. We parked outside the gates of the dump just before dusk on a summer's eve. Several other cars were parked there as well. This reassured me somewhat. We wouldn't die alone.

A dirt road runs through the dump, and on each side of the road lie hills of rubbish, beyond which there is only forest for miles. I rather nervously but eagerly scanned the bush at the edges of the dump, ready to emit my "Oooh!......no" wildlife call. Funnily enough, my family have stopped reacting to this. So when I spotted a black shadow in the bushes, I expected the usual disappointment and not a word passed my lips. And then the shadow moved and ambled out of the bushes into the sunlight. Ursus Whatchamacallus! A real live bear. To say I was thrilled is putting it mildly. Camera at the ready, I fired off several shots. We hadn't walked more than ten metres along the road into the dump.

At this point my brother's girlfriend (sensibly), freaked and legged it back to the car. She's from Northern Ontario and has a history with bears. Something involving a party of teenagers, a log cabin in the woods and a bear trying to break down a screen door to get at sausages. A Canadian version of "Friday the 13th: Don't Go Into the Woods."

Undeterred, we continued into the dump, safe in the knowledge that Dad carried a knife and pepper spray on his belt. Plus, the other humans visible on the horizon (clambering about on top of the landfill) were a portly lot. We could outrun them easily. And they say that's a big factor in surviving a bear attack. Make sure there's someone fatter and slower between you and the bear.

In all we saw ten bears. Some lurking in the bushes, some on top of the landfill ripping open rubbish bags (with a sensible distance between them and the humans pursuing the same garbage picking hobby). We walked diffidently into their midst, never straying from the road. Occasionally a bear would cross in front of us, eyeing us as warily as we eyed it respectfully.

It was all very peaceful, with an almost sociable feel about it. Here we were, all denizens of the same forest, hunting and gathering together. Only some of us had bigger teeth than others.

So now I qualify as a real Northerner.

Now all I need to do is see a moose in my backyard...