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Bundled into a jacket, toque and gloves, I stand at the end of a small pier alongside a wooden sauna at the Arctic Hideaway, a remote and stylish Norwegian island retreat north of the Arctic Circle. We Canadians are known as a hardy crew of nature lovers, but after two weeks in Norway I realize we pale in comparison to Norwegians for whom Friluftsliv — the outdoors — is literally part of everyday life. In the Lofoten Peninsula’s traditional fishing village of Henningsvaer, set alongside soaring mountains, I feel a strong Squamish, B. C. outdoor vibe. And at the Juvet Landscape Hotel, my chic wooden pod with glass window walls looking onto lush forest makes it hard to tell if I am sleeping indoors or out, something I know nature-loving Canadians would savour.

Mine is an 11-foot, 1963 Chestnut Featherweight made in New Brunswick, 38 pounds of shiny wood ribs clad in red canvas that has journeyed with me throughout New York State’s Adirondacks, Ontario’s Algonquin Park and the watery web of Quebec’s La Vérendrye Wildlife Reserve. “We’ve arrived many mornings to find orphan boats left outside the doors with heartbreaking notes begging us to take in beloved canoes that can no longer be cared for,” says Jeremy Ward, curator of the non-profit Canadian Canoe Museum which is located, fittingly, in Peterborough, Ontario, where the famed Peterborough Canoe Company was born in 1892. However, as I open the museum door, I’m instantly enveloped in a warm and welcoming world of lovingly constructed watercraft, a wealth of fascinating historical nuggets and intriguing Canoe-abilia sure to capture the imagination of even the staunchest non-paddler. I am barely inside the foyer when singer Gordon Lightfoot’s yellow canoe dangles before me like a giant banana, an indestructible Old Town Royal X complete with bumps earned after being wrapped around a rock on the Nahanni River. Since roughly one-third of the museum’s collection consists of Indigenous watercraft, Cavanagh, a member of the Sagamok First Nation, was hired by the museum to work as director of Indigenous peoples’ collaborative relations.

I’ve been working for decades as a journalist and photographer in Canada’s North, and my four-day guided expedition with Tundra North Tours is one of the most intimate “out on the land” immersions I’ve ever had. One unforgettable night we eat in an igloo and sample delicious reindeer, moose and beluga jerky, whale blubber, smooth and creamy smoked whitefish and quak, Inuit-style sushi made from raw, frozen Arctic char. Aurora Igloo Village features a chic clear-ice igloo, an ice teepee (in honour of the local Gwich’in people) and an ice wall around a fire pit, all wonderful places to escape the wind and hang out in sunny weather or in the evening. Other guests (from around the world) and I spend a night sleeping in igloos on heated mattresses atop reindeer skins, comfortable and warm until Taylor wakes us at midnight and we scramble outside to watch green Northern Lights swirling across the Arctic sky.

I, for one, had no idea that writing about The Great Trail (formerly called the Trans Canada Trail) would re-unite me with an old friend. Trans Canada Trail founders Bill Pratt (an Albertan) and Pierre Camu (a Quebecois) conceived the audacious idea for a great Canadian trail in 1992, when they were working as event planners on Canada’s 125th anniversary celebrations. Valerie Pringle, former Canadian broadcaster turned Trans Canada Trail rainmaker, agrees that The Great Trail will only continue to evolve. I’m meeting elders, healers and grandmothers along the way, and I’m having profound exchanges,” she says.