Paddling her own canoe

The Algonquin journey of guide Esther Keyser

When Esther Keyser became Algonquin Park’s first female canoe guide in the early 1930s, backcountry camping was a new concept and guiding was a male domain. Keyser inspired generations of canoe trippers and became part of the Park’s history.

STORY BY PATTI VIPOND | PHOTOS COURTESY

Whether by nature, nurture or some other decisive influence, Esther Sessions Keyser adored being outdoors very early in life. At 10 years old, she did her first solo camping trip at Arkwright Hills Campground near her hometown of Fredonia in western New York, U.S.A.

Esther’s singular desire to be alone and commune with nature foreshadowed the weaving of her life into the fabric of the history of Algonquin Park as its first female canoe guide. It was the summer of 1927 when she entered the Park for the first time as a teenaged camper at Northway Lodge on Cache Lake. Esther always said she fell in love with Algonquin at first sight.

“There were exciting people at Northway that stimulated her visions for her own future like founder Fanny Case and guide Charlie Skuse who was an old woodsman who taught the campers how to build a fire and go fishing,” recalls John, Esther’s second child with husband Joe Keyser, who she called Minawaska. “I think she just fell in love with the landscape, the water and the richness. It was a wonderful window through which she developed a very spiritual connection early on with the Park. The spiritual essence of the place kept her coming back to the trails until she was 88, and keeps us coming back now.”

In 1932, Esther was the 17-year-old executive director of the Northern Chautauqua Council of Girl Scouts. Though the pay was low, she had the summer months off to canoe and camp. Two years later, she was running a professional guide business in Algonquin. Wilderness camping was a new activity to the public and usually helmed by male guides. Esther’s first clients were groups of women eager to try backcountry canoeing. When demand for co-ed canoe trips began, she led them as well.

“She had an inner confidence and strength,” recalls John. “She always had a high level of comfort being by herself in nature.”

“She knew who she was and what she wanted,” adds Amber Keyser, John’s daughter and Esther’s granddaughter. “Esther and I shared a real love of explorer narratives. We would pass books back and forth about Shackleton going to the South Pole and Sir Edmond Hillary. There was a huge element of men doing what they did for fame or glory. That was not what drove Esther. She did what she did for her soul, her heart and her happiness. She never would have done it to be a role model for future generations, though she has inspired and motivated many of us. She had a core sense of knowing who she was and what she wanted. It was profound enough for her to do things people said she shouldn’t or couldn’t.”

Esther secured a land lease on

Algonquin’s Smoke Lake and built a cabin to store supplies, canoes and other necessities for her guided trips. A small addition was added in the 1940s to accommodate the couple’s three children. That same cabin, still without electricity, running water or indoor bathroom, is where John’s family heads most summers to use as base camp for their multi-day back country canoe trips.

Esther’s brother Manley, the first in the family to come up to Algonquin, built a cabin next door. His doctor had recommended a trip to the Park to rid Manley of asthma. His condition improved and he decided to make Algonquin his summer home.

With the Keyser legacy now embedded in four generations at the lake, John’s family keeps the cabin despite ongoing land lease fee increases and the long trip from their home in Oregon in the States. John and his wife Marilynne’s five grandchildren call it their favourite place.

Despite being the Park’s first female guide, Esther doesn’t trumpet that accomplishment in Paddling My Own Canoe, her popular memoir, co-written with John. Respected for being honest and non-judgmental, Esther was also known for her low-key modest personality. John needed to convince his mother that her unique life was book-worthy.

“We pushed her to get it together because we knew it was a fascinating story,” recalls John. “It was during the latter years of her life. She was running out of energy so the idea of doing a book was imposing. She had archives of her poetry, paintings and trip logs that made a rich landscape to draw upon. I was in Oregon and she was in Utah. I would write a draft chapter and send it to her or go down and visit. Once we started, she really got into it, changing things around, putting it in her own words. We had a lot of fun with it.”

Every summer, canoe trippers who have read the book arrive at the dock of the Keyser’s Smoke Lake cabin to ask if this is where Esther lived and talk to those who knew her.

“They are very interested in how Esther cooked and baked over an open fire, where and how she caught fish, and her favourite campsites,” says John. “Canoe trippers are hungry for that kind of information.”

On their canoe trips, the Keysers often stay at campsites built over 60 years ago by Esther. Arriving at Birch Point, Esther’s creation and her favourite campsite, on Big Trout Lake is like a homecoming. A few years ago, Amber was sent a photograph taken at Birch Point a few months after Esther’s death in February 2005. Someone had taken charcoal from the fire and written ESK RIP on the rocks.

“We have camped at Birch Point many times and there’s a resonance of all those experiences we shared with Esther and our family,” says Amber. “That’s powerful, that idea of connection to place. It’s something she instilled in all of us. My kids, nieces and nephew feel that same connection though they never knew Esther.”

Her grandmother hugely inspired Amber. She remembers Esther as being profoundly feminist and a generous person who valued her life enough to put her needs in a primary position. Esther also taught her grandchildren to live simply.

“My parents believed in living below your means like today’s voluntary simplicity movement,” says John. “Don’t over consume, live quietly and gently with nature as a partner and not as a dominant exploiter. Respect for nature was modeled from the time we were small.”

“Grandma Esther always saw herself as a

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UPTO 12 HOUR PROTECTION UORP D LYMADE IN C A steward of this land and felt it was a privilege and a blessing to be there,” adds Amber, whose children’s book Paddle My Own Canoe is based on Esther’s life. “She certainly recognized the primary right of First Nations and the importance of conservation. I think she gave that sense to all of us that being able to walk, however momentarily, in this space is profoundly important. We have this sense of needing to be good stewards of this land.”

John describes his father as an outdoorsman of the first level. Joe was an outdoor educator who founded a camp at the State University of New York at Fredonia. While Joe was operating this camp, Esther was operating Girl Scout camps in New York State. Both had outdoor living in their blood and it was a bond throughout their marriage.

“I think my father realized my mother had values that connected her to people,” John recalls. “She was an effective leader because she was a very good listener and led by example.”

John believes it was the spiritual essence of Algonquin Park that kept Esther paddling through her 80s. Though she stopped going on canoe trips during her husband’s final illness, Esther paddled again after his passing. Her last canoe trip in 2003 was the first one for Amber’s new baby son. Four generations of Keysers went on that trip together.

“There was my grandmother, parents, husband and my little baby and it was amazing,” recalls Amber. “Esther has had an outsized influence on my life. In my childhood memories, it feels like I spent every summer at the cabin. In fact, it was probably only two weeks every other year.”

When Esther chose her land lease on Smoke Lake, two white pine saplings swayed her decision. The small trees had escaped loggers when the rest of the lake’s forest was cleared. The pair of pines frame the cabin’s entrance. When John looks at them, he thinks of the ritual his mother did when arriving and leaving. She hugged both trees, and her family still does.

Paddling My Own Canoe by Esther S. Keyser is published by The Friends of Algonquin Park, with all proceeds supporting Algonquin Park. For more information or to order, visit store. algonquinpark.on.ca/cgi/algonquinpark