We had a wonderful canoe trip, and it led to many more over the years. I quite literally fell in love with this glorious landscape of white pine, pink granite and dancing waters. Islands and bays, channels and cliffs, flat waters and rapids, bald eagles, osprey, moose, beaver, bear and flying squirrels. A semi-wilderness that was close enough to drive to in a few hours and yet largely wild and not well known by most people. It had a feeling of pristineness that was missing in many parts of Southern Ontario. 

Sometime later, the corporation I worked for offered me a “big job,” one I knew would consume my time like never before. Perhaps, I thought, in fifteen or more years I would wake up and wish I had taken a different turn in the road of life. So, instead of accepting their generous offer, I bought a rundown fishing lodge on the French River. The plan – to turn it into a place of beauty, peace and respite that celebrated Canadian history, art and literature, by a waterway where once the voyageurs had paddled on their way to the west, during the fur trade era. 

“He’s gone mad,” people said. Others called me and told me, “You will lose everything.” A Gov’t ministry sent a letter to another Gov’t ministry and wrote, “He will definitely fail,” and so on the comments went in a way that would have put off many a person, of that, I am sure. The fact was, I was in love and we know love is blind. But love harnessed can build lodges and cottages, bridges and docks, find ways to raise money when it seems there is none, and do pretty much anything one asks. It did and 27 years later our love affair is still going strong. The Lodge at Pine Cove on the French River and me.