Young Leaders, Algonquin Park, 1978

To be safe, we unpacked the canoes and worked in two teams. My group would hump our stuff along the trail, while the other would tie ropes to the canoes and tow them up the creek. As I lugged a knapsack through the forest, a caravan of Cub Scouts, each with a massive round pack at least twice his weight strapped to his sweating forehead, came from behind and passed us. The troop leader was at the end of the line, barking at the panting kids to get a move on. Inexplicably, he mistook us for seasoned comrades of the great outdoors.

“Did you see those idiots back there?” he sneered. “They got stuck trying to pull through!” I agreed that whoever the morons were, they had no business being in the wilderness. And the Cub master stomped off on his forced march.

Looking back now, there’s no mistaking it. I was perfectly positioned on the path to journalism. I could be an idiot one moment and pass as an expert the next. And Harper, hauling cargo alongside me, could suffer the fools all around — just keep smiling and see past them all the way to 24 Sussex Drive.