My father’s pipe gave the air a nice warm smell that mixed with the sharper tang of the pine scent. I remember him and Tim talking about the way to tell that a rabbit is free of liver flukes, and that’s all I remember, because the long day and the satisfaction of the meal and the warm glow of the camp fire sent me right off to sleep.

Dawn found us awake and raring to go. We made a hasty breakfast of cold biscuits from the package Miss Pauline had given us and started loading the canoe.

First my father put four light spruce poles in the bottom. “That’ll keep the gear out of any water we may take over the side,” he explained, starting to pile the gear along the center line of the canoe. He put all the heavy stuff down in the bottom, including some canned goods, and then covered them with the canvas fly and began piling our sleeping blankets and extra clothing on it. He tied it all up by folding the canvas over and fastening it with a bit of heavy twine.

“All right, Miss Lizzy,” he told me. “You get up in the bow, facing back. Roll your jacket up and use it as a rest. Otherwise that thwart will leave its mark on your back.”

I stepped carefully into the canoe, putting my weight in its center as I had been taught, and lowered myself down to my position. Then Tim boarded. He sat in the center, on a small bit of folded canvas. The load of supplies was directly behind him. My father pushed the canoe out into the water and got in carefully, balancing on his knees just in front of the rear thwart.

So, just a few minutes after sunrise, we slid silently down the brown, muddy waters of the creek. Our great adventure had begun.

No one who has ever boiled up a stream propelled by a noisy, smelly outboard motor will ever know how peaceful yet exciting an hour on the water can be. Only the silent canoe is accepted by nature as one of her own and permitted to join in the normal rhythms and flow of riverbank life. Within a half mile, which took only a few minutes paddling downstream, we had seen a good dozen muskrats. Because of the canoe’s shallow draft, we skimmed over water that would defy other boats. From my “parlor chair” in the bow of the canoe I could see all that passed. I enjoyed watching my father and Tim at their paddling—which, thanks to the downstream flow of our creek, wasn’t strenuous.

The paddles were hand-carved. I remember the winter my father shaped them, sitting in front of the fire while the snow howled outside, whittling slowly and steadily at two large pieces of maple. He talked as he worked, not so much because he thought I would remember or understand what he said but merely to fill the quiet hours.