American nature poet Henry David Thoreau famously said “Wherever there is a channel for water, there is a road for the canoe.”
Fourth-year English student Gary O’Neil will head home to Chatham for the summer by canoe. This weekend he and friends put in at Strathroy and begin on the Sydenham River. Last summer, he followed the Thames River right from the main campus.
As the academic year draws to an end, the road home for University of Western Ontario student Gary O’Neil will be the Sydenham River.
Launching from his grandparents’ home in Strathroy on Saturday, April 25, the fourth-year English student, along with two of his former high school classmates Tyler Gawley and Crystal Martens, will cast off for a 160-kilometre canoe trip home to Chatham, Ont.
After writing his last exam at Western, O’Neil says he is ready for his next great adventure.
“It’s a product of the exam structure – I have basement syndrome,” he says. “I’ve developed a real compulsion to go outside.”
But this isn’t the first time O’Neil felt the call of the wild.
At this time last year, he partnered with two other Western students for a maiden voyage in his canoe along the Thames River to Chatham. It took the trio three days to reach their destination, enduring bouts of rainfall, sleeping under the stars and losing a few items – including the celebratory champagne packed for the end of the trip – during an unfortunate capsize.
Spending hours paddling in a canoe with very little semblance of civilization in sight, “you really get to know people out there,” he says.
The threesome banded together to find food, set up camp and troubleshoot challenges that arose along the way.
However, the difficulties he faced last year were not enough to deter him from striking out again and he learned a few lessons from his experience, including packing more than a half loaf of bread and peanut butter for snacks and not to rely on garbage bags to keep his belongings dry.
“There is no backing out,” he says.
With very little room to spare in the canoe, all of his possessions will make a more traditional trip along the highway to his parents’ home.
Although O’Neil admits he may seem like an unlikely canoe adventurer – he hasn’t stepped into a canoe since the last trip – he is looking forward to the challenge and the chance to be reacquainted with Mother Nature.
“I’m trying to start the summer off with some vigorousness, some excitement,” he says.
The threesome plan to paddle from dawn to dusk each day, passing through Napier, Rokeby, Alvinson, Shetland, Florence, Dawnmills, Dresden, Tupperville and Wallaceburg where the Sydenham River empties into Lake St. Clair. Following the shoreline to the mouth of the Thames River, the group will head upstream along the river to Chatham.
O’Neil is cautiously optimistic the trip will run smoothly. The goal is to arrive home by April 30.
To add extra symbolism to the trip, the trio is hoping to raise up to $5,000 along the way for the Canadian Cancer Society London Branch. All three students had close family members touched by cancer.
Donations can be made at https://convio.cancer.ca/goto/canoe4cancer.
Paddlers will follow the Sydenham River to Lake St. Clair, then head for Chatham.