JOHNSTON, BRIAN – If you hail from Manitoba like I do, with its long hot summer days, an ideal place to spend your time outdoors is on the refreshing waterways. Years ago, after getting a canoe pinned in a rapid, a paddler portaging that same troublesome rapid told me about a local canoeing group. There I saw others learning to run rivers. I signed up, learnt, volunteered to help out, and before I knew it, I was instructing the course. Within that community a few seasoned canoe trippers had expanded their range of nature and rivers beyond southern Manitoba so I followed them first north and then further north to the vast barren lands. I’m still volunteering for Paddle Manitoba and Paddle Canada as well as presenting at symposiums, publishing articles, instructing and of course paddling my canoe. I’ve experienced big skies, esker walkways, blowing grasslands, herds of caribou and musk ox, bears of all kinds—some too close. I’ve had the opportunity to witness Inuit culture, history and progress. I have felt ice beneath, winds in my face, snow down my neck, waves crash over the bow and oceans roll. Amazingly as the endless flow of water past a riverside camp is my desire to immerse myself in nature. I’ll never be without wanting.