Pictured here: Dr. Mike, Canadian Canoe Museum Executive Director James Raffan, Canadian Author Nicolas Dickner, Lakefield College School former Headmaster Terry Guest
This Wednesday, I was awarded the opportunity to attend a reading by award winning author, Nicolas Dicker. Dickner’s book, Nikolski, tells the story of three characters, completely unaware of their relation with one another, as they traverse separately through life. The book was the winner of CBC Canada Reads 2010 and also won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation in 2008. The reading was hosted at the beautiful Canadian Canoe Museum in downtown Peterborough. I was fascinated by its ornate features, the fantastical canoes which dotted the museum floor and the pillars of ancient wood which decorated the room. Nicolas Dickner was introduced by the head of Champlain College, Dr. Mike Allcott. In his introduction, Dr. Allcott described Dickner as one who “lives in the extraordinary milieu of the imagination,”, and it was right there, within the beautiful walls of the Canoe museum, that we were invited into the majestic imagination of this wonderful writer.
The object of Dickner’s talk was on film maker, author, artist and canoeist, Bill Mason. Mason was an avid canoeist and shared his passions through his art. He is often attributed to his Red Prospector, a canoe popularized through Mason’s adventures through Canada’s vast outdoor tapestry. Many have asked Dickner why he was so passionate about Bill Mason, a question that was answered over and over throughout his lecture. Dickner shares Mason’s love for exploration and discovery. Growing up in Riviere du Loup in Quebec, Nicolas would frequent the local library to pore over the huge topographical maps, exploring the concept of the “map country”, Canada—land that is shown on the map, but nearly inaccessible to human beings. Dickner argues that this was not always the case. Back when canoes were the main form of transport, rivers were traversed to access these isolated, northern parts of Canada. Regarding these expanses as “map country” is a modern phenomena. The power that the canoe holds had led Dickner to regard the canoe as a concept, “the canoe is an instrument to move through the time and space of life.” He exclaims that Mason’s work, such as his documentary “Path of the Paddle” convinced him of this and led him toward the path of enlightenment.
I was, without doubt, assured of Dickner’s undying passion, not only for the canoe and the works of Bill Mason, but to life as a whole. I understood Dickner’s talk as an argument for the need to traverse the complicated and beautiful paths of life. We cannot settle for the concept of “inaccessibility” such as those blank and unexplored spaces on a map. We have the instrument for discovery, however, we must also have the resolve to exercise this instrument. Both Dickner and Mason understood this concept and through both of their incredible art, they have convinced others to join them on this path.
Dickner often removes the paddle hanging on the wall of his office and takes a few strokes in mid-air. It is here, where he finds strength, just as Mason did as he traversed the wide expanse of this beautiful country, whether paddling upstream or down current. I believe that this is the final part to the question that so many people have asked Nicolas. To be within one’s own music, with no distraction from the outside, would be, as I have been convinced through Dickner’s talk, a taste of one’s Nirvana. As Dickner and Mason have so beautifully argued, one must just find their own instrument so that they may journey there.
Both Dickner and Mason share a passion for the precious moments spent alone, whether canoeing or writing. I felt something click inside of me when Dickner said that, “a writer needs some lasting silence to hear his own music”. I was first in awe, of an idea so beautiful and fantastical. Quickly after, I recognized moments of hearing my own music through moments of isolation, and I knew that Dickner was completely right. Whether one is snaking along a silent river, as their paddle lilly-dips into a mirrored image of both sky and cloud, scrawling wiry strokes onto the white flesh of a canvas, or walking beneath the floating flakes of snow on a winter’s night. We have all experienced our own music, and it is through encountering the work of Dickner and Mason that we are reminded of its majesty.
--Mairi Mcguire, Champlain Cabinet Director of Communications
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