Kevin Callan > Quotes

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” MARK TWAIN”
― Kevin Callan, Once Around Algonquin: An epic canoe journey

“What sets a canoeing expedition apart is that it purifies you more rapidly and inescapably than any other. Travel a thousand miles by train and you are a brute; pedal five hundred on a bicycle and you remain basically a bourgeois; paddle a hundred in a canoe and you are already a child of nature.”
― Kevin Callan, Once Around Algonquin: An epic canoe journey

“Not saying hello is something I don’t understand. The problem with ignoring others while traveling in remote wilderness areas, besides being characterized as brash and unmannerly, is that you never know who you might need to call upon for help.”
― Kevin Callan, Once Around Algonquin: An epic canoe journey

“I don’t get homesick at camp; I get campsick at home.”
― Kevin Callan, Once Around Algonquin: An epic canoe journey

“Attitudes also were different. We didn’t go out on trip to survive or crush a vast distance; we went to relax and thrive. More often, it seems the people who do spend long periods in the wilderness are trying to conquer nature, rather than be part of it.”
― Kevin Callan, Once Around Algonquin: An epic canoe journey

“The rules to complete the Meanest Link are lengthy but straightforward. Paddlers can start the loop at any store and travel in either direction. You can do a section at a time or the whole loop in one go, which is known as the Full Link. No solo trips are recognized for safety reasons. You have to use the same watercraft for the whole section. You can paddle as fast or as slow as you like. The Meanest Link is not a race, but it’s perceived as one by most. You must visit, and preferably stay on, Bill Swift’s favorite site on Lake Lavielle, and cheers a preferred beverage — his was a can of Genesee Cream Ale. And on the Opeongo to Oxtongue Link, you have to go up the Little Mad to Source Lake, stop at Camp Pathfinder to pay your respects to the spot where it all began for Bill Swift in Algonquin.”
― Kevin Callan, Once Around Algonquin: An epic canoe journey

“toboggan full of winter gear across a frozen lake, where the sense of isolation is so great I feel like the only man on Earth;”
― Kevin Callan, Once Around Algonquin: An epic canoe journey

“When you look at the face of Canada and study the geography carefully, you come away with the feeling that God could have designed the canoe first and then set about to conceive a land in which it could flourish.” BILL MASON”
― Kevin Callan, Once Around Algonquin: An epic canoe journey

“As a society, our priorities have changed. In the 1950s, the average canoe trip in Algonquin was a month long. In the 1970s, it was seven to 10 days. In the 1990s, it averaged a week. Now, the standard amount of time spent paddling the interior of the park is two nights. I know life has become insanely busy for most of us, and it’s not easy to get away for longer than a mere weekend, but how connected can someone be to their natural surroundings if they’re just popping in for a night or two?”
― Kevin Callan, Once Around Algonquin: An epic canoe journey

“To calculate the distance of the storm, count the number of seconds (one Mississippi…two Mississippi…three Mississippi…) between the flash of lightning and the thunder. Then divide by five. You now know how many miles away the storm is.”
― Kevin Callan, Once Around Algonquin: An epic canoe journey

“Also, the realization that fumes from the nitrate of mercury used in the felt-making process affected the nerves of hatmakers and caused their speech to blur and nerves to twitch — hence the term “mad as a hatter” — also helped the public to lose interest.”
― Kevin Callan, Once Around Algonquin: An epic canoe journey

“Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough.” MARK TWAIN”
― Kevin Callan, Once Around Algonquin: An epic canoe journey

“Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.” MICHAEL CAINE”
― Kevin Callan, Once Around Algonquin: An epic canoe journey

“After days, weeks and months spent waiting to escape from the crazed normality of day-to-day life, it makes no sense to race through the wilderness and finish a trip early.”
― Kevin Callan, Once Around Algonquin: An epic canoe journey

“My favourite canoe route is the next one.”
― Kevin Callan