Someone coined the phrase “Business as Mission” to refer to the strategy of entering a mission field with a business as a “full-time” day job and therefore gaining a work visa to the country, but with the expressed purpose of gaining a foothold where traditional missionaries are not welcome. I want to coin a phrase, “Canoeing as Ministry,” to describe using canoe tripping to make disciples of Jesus Christ.

My second excursion in my young adult life expanded to taking along five other young men, college and high school age, none of whom had ever been in a canoe (to my knowledge) but who were game for adventure. We set out for seven days going back to the same haunts in Algonquin Park as the previous year.

My compass and map skills came back quickly from my Boy Scout days, and together with a knack for reading distant shores and tree lines, these skills established me as a reasonably competent guide through the wilderness to keep on course and find all the right portages. Perish the thought of taking a long two-mile hike with equipment in hand and on shoulders overland, only to find us in the wrong lake!

The canoeing bug continued to itch, and so I kept scratching. My passion for canoeing was not squelched by getting married, for Mary was eager to share my love for trekking in the wilderness. Shortly after our wedding, we took our first trip together, followed by one with her parents (no long portages, though). They were all game. On my first Christmas with Mary, I even bought her a canteen and a camping mess kit (not one of my more stellar gift-giving moments – her appreciation for wilderness trekking did not extend to receiving Christmas gifts of camping gear!).

The following year, we found ourselves planning our first long, large, well-organized canoeing and backpacking trip. We partnered with Camp Li-Lo-Li in Western New York, which underwrote the cost of tents, cooking gear and canoes for taking a group of 18, including young adults aged 17-25, into the wilderness. A friend donated a flatbed snowmobile trailer (which we modified into a canoe trailer for six camp canoes).

We were spurred on by the Outward Bound program popular in the 1970s and other Christian wilderness programs based out of places like Honey Rock Christian Camp in Wisconsin. We created a path through many lakes and long portages while encompassing team-building events, biblical teaching about commitment, and times of solo self-reflection. The group of 18 carried and canoed with all our equipment and food for ten days out in the backcountry. We encountered moose, bears, a multitude of seagulls, herons and osprey, storms and insects—and lots of blue skies and beautiful sunsets. Early calls for abandoning the trip to find a hamburger stand or pizza place gave way to a developing appreciation for freeze-dried cuisine that can only be enjoyed in the wild. The final day, as we paddled out, found even the most city-dependent and pampered ones of the group did not want to leave Algonquin. The sounds of the weekend campers with their loud music struck us as utterly foreign to all that was natural and good about being in the wild.

The final campfire brought tears to my eyes as, one by one, the campers spoke of the profound impact the ten days had on their lives, discovering sides of themselves they didn’t know existed, learning to trust others, working as a team, dealing with conflict, pushing beyond their limits, facing fears, and in the midst of it all learning more about the God who created them, of Jesus Christ who died for them.

Two more yearly excursions came and went; the results were always the same. Because of the Lord’s leading, Mary and I, with our one-year-old Jason, moved to Dallas, Texas. Still, before leaving, we handed this Canoe-Backpacking ministry to Charlie Tempest, who carried it on. But our times in those three years were some of the finest for Mary and me. Even some 45 years later (at the time of this writing), some of those campers still remind me of the impact it had on their lives.

We have continued our canoeing, which became more possible after inheriting my grandparents’ old Grumman, which we used for many years. Eventually, that found its final field of service at a Christian summer camp in the Adirondacks of New York. On my 65th birthday, Mary insisted on using some of our savings to buy me (and her) a brand new 16’ Kevlar “Prospector” style canoe, about half the weight of the Grumman, easier for this aging body to lift overhead and onto the car racks, and easier for portaging at about only 39 pounds. We still have it stored in Ontario, ready for more trekking. If the Lord allows, I’ve set a new goal of canoe tripping at least once in my 80s. Mind you, the sum total of portaging might consist only of getting the canoe from the car rooftop to the dock! But time will tell.

I’d love to justify our love of canoeing with a scholarly study of the underlying Hebrew and Greek words for “canoe,” but that will not float. Paddling a canoe needs no justification like that. Indeed, I believe God has made everything for both His and our enjoyment. I enjoy the thought that if there is no canoeing in heaven and the new earth, then there will be something much better!