On facebook they call it "Throw back Thursday" so here's my old picture. It was 1967, late August iirc, Cobden, Ontario, Muskrat Lake and if you want the exact location, if you look at old voyageur maps about the portage on the Ottawa River that uses Muskrat Lake, we where on the spot where the portage headed back to the Ottawa River northbound. Right behind me taking this picture was the trail leading towards the Ottawa.
Anyway, it was 67' and my ride was up, after my few weeks here in Cobden I was headed back to NY and volunteering for the draft. I had a friend who got called so we planned to go together. Little did I know he would be rejected...haha, for me.
So my longtime friend Paul G from Ottawa and I took a paddle one last time down the lake in the old Plycraft canoe with some beer, beans, franks, and some Players cigs. This is Paul looking cool for the camera. It wouldn't be long before he had his own cross to bear as he became a Mountie with the RCMP and spent a while at Norway House in northern Manitoba policing First Nations reserves before alcohol was banned in many of the villages. His stories where sad and scary. Later he became part of the Musical Ride and we hooked up again under Madison Square Garden in NYC where he gave my wife, her sister and myself the grand tour of the stables and first class seats to the performance, then out to dinner, this time we left out the beans and franks.
Two good reasons I love canoes and Canada.
My friend Paul G, 1967