“Testing the Waters.” Backpacker Magazine. August 2013.
My second thoughts about the wisdom of embarking on a four-day, father-daughter paddling trip start at the Magalloway River put-in outside of Errol, New Hampshire, before our canoe even gets wet. I set my water bottle in the stern and throw Dad’s in the bow. He walks over immediately and looks at his bottle. “That’s the front,” he says. ¶ “You’re right.” I stand closer to the stern. ¶ Dad shakes his head. “But that’s the, the… girl place.” In the silence that follows I debate my options. This trip, timed for July, the state’s best month, is an attempt to win my dad over to New Hampshire—rugged, rural New Hampshire, where I have just decided to live. The campaign started on the wrong foot: On what was supposed to be a proud tour of the home my fiancé and I are buying in North Conway, Dad almost passed out from the mold-remediation chemicals. And now, calling him a chauvinistic jerk (or telling him the weaker paddler sits in the bow) will not move us along our trajectory of love and understanding. I sigh. “Really, Dad?”…