I have spent many hours on snowshoes. My first taste of snowshoeing was at age four or five in Fort Nelson, B.C. (Treaty 8 Territory). My father was serving there as a member of the Royal Canadian Army Pay Corps and was given training suitable to the environment. One weekend he brought home a pair of snowshoes, and he would balance me on top of his feet as we walked through the deep snow of the abundant forest right across the road from our house (nearly identical to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s childhood house in Fort Smith, N.W.T.).

I lost my father when I was ten and our family moved to a small apartment during my teenage years. My craving for the forest, despite our lack of resources, led to a few winter expeditions in the snow-laden forests of northern Algonquin Park with my........

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