Learning from experience
Holidays often combine the familiar and the novel. We do the things we like doing, but often go to a new place or explore new variants on the activity. Surprises can occur and they become part of the holiday experience.
This summer, through the urging and organisation of one of my daughters, eight of us went canoe camping in Ontario’s Killarney wilderness park, which is a beautiful region of lakes just off Georgian Bay in Lake Huron. The mountains in the park are of white quartzite or pink granite and one readily understands why members of the Group of Seven, Canada’s celebrated school of painters, loved this area. The lakes themselves are surprisingly varied. Some are deep, with wonderfully clear water, while others are shallow with water lilies. You cannot always trust the map because beavers regularly change the water levels through the building and subsequent decay of their dams.
Paddling a canoe in such surroundings is a delightful experience. Less pleasant, but with its own satisfactions, is the task of portaging the canoes, food and tents from one lake to another, usually over steep and rocky paths. It was while carrying a food pack over such a portage that my wife Kristin slipped and broke her leg. Luckily this happened only a mile from a yacht anchorage in an inlet in Georgian Bay at the edge of the park where we were able to call for help. Ontario’s impressive air ambulance service had a helicopter overhead by the time we got back to Artist’s Lake and she was whisked off.
When I caught up with her two days later she had her leg in a cast and we both began the unplanned experience of organising life and travel around a temporary disability. We continued on to Saskatchewan, where our other daughter was getting married, and then back to Quebec to visit friends and colleagues there. During this time I happened to receive an e-mail from Katy Owen, one of the OU’s most indomitable graduates, telling me about her summer holiday. Katy lives with multiple disabilities but never lets them stop her engaging with life to the full. Furthermore, she sends periodic e-mails to a group of OU friends telling us about her experiences. I count myself privileged to be on her address list because Katy’s occasional messages light up the day.
In this case Katy’s account of visiting some of the historic sites and ships of England put our own modest experience of navigating a wheelchair through airports, shops and cities in appropriate perspective. It also gave me a sharper appreciation of the challenges surmounted by the thousands of OU students who live and study with disabilities of many kinds. Coping with Kristin’s frustration at contributing less fully than she would have liked to the wedding preparations and calming my own impatience with bumpy pavements and the waits for assistance in airports were a salutary and formative part of our holiday experience.