Good morning and how are you you limpy, whiviling bastard. I just can’t help but notice that you are about to shed your genes. Looks like all you need is a good wind coming in, or maybe just a swift kick in the stalk.

Your choice.

I just woke up here and if I can get away with doing my good deed for the day nice and early then I can plan what is left of it for evil. We can be good friends, this is what we call a win win.

One boot is all it will take and then you fulfill your destiny and I can go on with the rest of my day.

You will scatter your seeds all over hell’s creation and I will walk away quickly forgetting about your naked stalk. That is the problem isn’t it?

Well buddy, the truth is is that is sucks to be an annual. You begin life as an airborne seed, you land and when the weather is good you germinate. You grow up and spread your own seeds and then you wither away and die. That is what you do.

You are forgettable.

My footprint is history. Squashing you into the muddy ground, a swift in the tall grass where I kicked at your glory, a fool to the science of seed-a-carnation. Bereft of your plumage you become just another blade of grass and just another moment watched by the sky.

You’re choice my friend.

I can remove all the feathering seeds and send them scattering in to the winds in just one second or you can wait here for weeks and wait for some natural occurrence to do it for you.

So what is it going to be?

Figured so.

Brace yourself. It all be good.

According to the imprint surrounding the beaver logo she was made by the Bellechagge Company in St. Raphael, Quebec around twenty five years ago. I know the approximate age as I bought the canoe from a great aunt who sold it to me along with the paddles after my great uncle passed away. He had bought the whole package new around 1985 and they spent many a lazy summer day up on some quiet lake up in the Rocky Mountains fishing for trout and taking in the beauty.

He succumbed to cancer in 2005 and then the canoe and paddles became mine.

I began to horrify my great aunt with the odd story of how I had taken the previously pacified and gentle Coleman out on to wild Alberta rivers where I proceeded to smash into trees and rocks. One time I had even bent it in half and almost lost my son and a cousin in the process.

It is a good damn canoe and I’ve learned over time to trust it. It won’t sink. The aft and bow are filled with life-saving Styrofoam and if it is all mangled up and you are in deep or fast waters you can grab on and she’ll take you out. It is a good damn canoe.

Without a good paddle though, you have nothing.

She’s been made from pine and weighs less then a pound. She was hand carved from a single chunk of wood and she was made with love. The handle lets a clammy palm cozy around it and when fear strikes and the grip tightens down its well worn shaft there comes a feeling of secureness.

As long as you hang on that paddle will look after you.

Here she is though, She is split up the middle and she looks aged and worn. Exhausted, dry and bitter.

I’d like to put her down, break her in half and put her in the burn barrel. Once a paddle splits you know there is no going back. The nature of wood demands that she retract from her innards once it develops an open sore. Hot sun pulls her in, wet swells her with the glory days of life once lived. Wood is not inert and the passion of these opposing forces forces puts pressure on the continual dioramic movement of the cell level integrity.

Once she breaks, there is no stopping it.

Sure, I can apply a bandage and she can still live for a few more days but the bottom line becomes, she can’t be trusted anymore.

Ode to a paddle, a silly thing indeed.

You might think.

If she fails you fail. When your life is on the line, you need to hear the deep ‘thunk’ of solid wood, the reverberation of confidence.

Ode to you paddle, you're long life has reached it's extent and today, is a sad, sad day.

It is that time of the year again when politicians across this fine country revive the pardon Louis Riel debate and it moves all across the political spectrum. It is that time of year again because it is gathering time for the Metis and it just so happens that politicians like speaking in front of gatherings. And typically, when they speak in front of people they tend to want to throw something out that is relevant to the scenario.

Case in point we have illiberal leader Michael Ignatieff speaking in front of a Metis gathering at this years Back to Batoche in Saskatchewan:

"The execution of Louis Riel shouldn't have happened," Ignatieff said, calling it "probably the most painful thing in our history."

"And if one day a pardon is a way to come to reconciliation on this, I'd be in favour of it." (Winnipeg Sun)

He also states in his classic flip-flop style that he would be in favour of it only if we wanted it. If the Metis wanted a pardon for Louis Riel then he would be in favour of it, if not, then he wouldn't. A recent editorial in the National Post accused Ignatieff of "ethno-political pandering" to our sensibilities and in general it is.

There are two Metis camps, those for pardoning Riel and those against and Ignatieff attempted to cozy up to both of them at the same time. Politicians will tell you whatever you want to hear and in this case as it is aimed at our specific 'ethno-group', I find it demeaning that Liberal leader Micheal Ignatieff thinks we are too stupid not to notice. But then again, we've been hoodwinked by the Liberals a couple of times before.