PROFILE
Max Finkelstein: Ottawa’s Paddling Guru By Allen Macartney
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ROM SPRING break-up until the day winter ice clogs the Ottawa River, you can’t keep Max Finkelstein out of his canoe. He’s paddled across Canada following voyageur riverine trails; he’s canoed across the Arctic, among icebergs, and up the Fraser and Mackenzie Rivers. When he’s not paddling, he’s either talking about rivers to large groups across Canada, or writing canoeing books. His first book, Canoeing a Continent: On the Trail of Alexander Mackenzie, has registered strong sales. His second canoeing book is forthcoming, while a third is in the works. Max is a communications officer for the Canadian Heritage Rivers System. After following in Max’s wake for some months, Ottawa Outdoors OOM: How did you first get interMagazine finally caught up to him esting in canoeing? just long enough to ask about his padMax: I bought my first canoe dling experiences. when I was 18, and then bought Bill OOM: Canoeing is a magical Mason’s book, Path of the Paddle as experience for you. Can you describe soon as it was published. Together, the passion? they taught me how to paddle. I also Max: To a large extent, canoelearned about paddling from canoe ing and camping have defined who racing. If you can paddle a racing I am, and what I want from life. canoe (18 1⁄2 feet long and 27” wide Those realizations have come through with very little freeboard) down rapids long canoe trips – life-defining trips. and keep the open side up, it makes They’ve helped me get to know paddling a normal canoe feel easy. myself better, and learn what makes Racing also taught me how to paddle me happy. I do a lot of camping, but efficiently. That’s important when you it’s never enough. I feel most comgo on a three or four month wilderness fortable and at home on the water, trek. and sleeping under the stars. OOM: You’ve gone on several long canoe trips – ones that take many months. What draws you to that type of solitary experience? Max: A long canoe trip gives you time to focus on what’s really important in your life and what isn’t. During some canoe trips I start to notice the common things that I miss when I’m not on canoe trips, like a night sky full of stars, the smell of spruce, and the call of a loon. But mostly, I go because it’s really pretty out there. OOM: Did your cross-Canada canoe trip take lots of planning?
Max: Actually it happened suddenly. I was doing an exhibit on the fur trade for my job. I wondered, “What would it be like to follow the voyageur route?” It was a dream that evolved quickly — no life-long passion. I just wanted to do something really different. It just started with me wanting to go on a long canoe trip. I also love the voyageurs. They were such colourful, self-reliant and dramatic people. They’d wreck a big birch bark canoe in a rapid, then go into the forest and, several days later, have a new canoe to continue their voyage. Incredible! They did it without mosquito repellants, Gore-tex , fleece and rip-stop tents. Every day they made Olympic-level achievements and thought nothing of it. I wanted to have a taste of that excitement. OOM: Can you describe the trip? Max: It began at Britannia in the Ottawa River on a windy, blustery day. I was bouncing around on the choppy water doing a television interview, but I just wanted to leave. Finally, I was able to start dipping my paddle and begin the trip. The first year I was on the water for three months. From Ottawa, I paddled to the Mattawa and ™
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