It wasn't that we hated Toronto, far from it. It just seemed that it hated us. We thought we’d taken the clever option by getting a work visa for Canada. Instead of putting up with several hundred whining Yank kids at a camp in the middle of Hicksville, Idaho, we would go and find interesting jobs in the bustling Canadian cities.

However, because of a massive economic downturn, there were no jobs. The employers didn't like our faces, the Blue Jays baseball fans in the magnificent Skydome stadium didn't like our cleverly adapted football chants, and the rather conservative Torontonians certainly didn't like our partying antics.

All things considered, when we saw that the Toronto YHA was offering three or seven day guided trips into the hinterland at the kind of prices that even unemployable plonkers like we could afford, the “collective” gave it the go ahead, and the following Friday afternoon we left for Algonquin Provincial Park in two vans full of ridiculously excited Europeans.

“Ow — OW!” Rustle rustle.
“Oh for chrissakes, lie still will you.”
“Who's bloody farted? That's disgusting.”
“Oh now look what you've done. I told you we'd get pine needles and raccoon shit in here if you didn't take your shoes off outside the tent.”

This kind of moaning might have been expected if we had been bivouacking in the jungles of Vietnam for six months, surviving on K-rations and hiding behind enemy lines. But, this was the first night in Algonquin, and we were only camped in the trailer park. The troops were already restless, and it did not bode well for the coming battle with nature.

Ahhhhhh — the tranquillity of the Canadian Lakes in late summer. Cool, clear lakes enshrouded by dense forest right up to the waters edge, cloaking all manner of croaking, chirping and growling things. Perfect. A man can get back to nature here, connect with his soul, and allow mellow thoughts and witty banter to flow freely amongst the happy little throng of adventurers.

Of course, being a pack of British University students, we stretched our communicative abilities to the absolute limit nice and early, and expressed our immense intelligence and side splitting wit in a simple ditty, modified for the Canadian environment we were enjoying:

“Bears, bears, we want more bears.”
Oh how droll.

And so it was, with paddles in hand and two inches of water in the bottom of the canoe (which mysteriously always seemed to be there, even if we had just turned the bloody thing over to empty it) that we set out across the first lake, singing as we went.

Actually, to say “set out across the lake” is a little misleading. Without having any prior knowledge on how to paddle an open decked Canadian canoe, the art of going in a straight line became an urgent skill to master. Our guides said the person in the rear of the canoe needed to perform a strange thing called a J-stroke. This would propel us forward in some semblance of a straight line, whilst the person at the front simply paddled to add extra speed.

They forgot to mention the crews should paddle on opposite sides of the boat, and with equal force, so we ended 15 minutes of furious paddling with virtually everybody back at the shoreline we had just left.

A further 15 minutes of impatient tutoring from the guides followed. Eventually we left the remnants of civilisation behind and pushed out towards open water, quietly humming the tune to Hawaii 5-0, and precariously zig-zagging away behind the serenely smooth and arrow straight lead canoe.

Once we had finished the obligatory 20 minutes of soaking, ramming, and paddle jousting that accompanies every novice party of infantile canoers, the trip settled down quite wonderfully. It doesn't take long before you actually start to appreciate the surroundings. With the paddles gently gurgling through the water, the sun tanning your pasty limbs, and a light sweat covering your body, it's impossible not to relax and actually feel good about being alive. Moving so close to the water's surface whilst barely making a sound means that encountering wildlife is virtually guaranteed. In Canada, there is a vast array of really cool, interesting animals. To see Loons, Beaver, Elk, Caribou, Hawks, Owls and the like is fairly commonplace if you spend enough time in the wild. However, everyone, Canadians and visitors alike, become obsessed about two animals in particular.

One is the immensely ugly and stupid looking Moose. Fascination is mainly due to the Moose being such a unique specimen and so difficult to find, but it's so “Canadian”, that people want to see them. The other, is without doubt the number one king of the beasts on the North American continent, and takes the cool quotient way off the scale. Weighing in at a steady 600 odd pounds, comes the tree-climbing, lake-swimming, meat-eating, honey-tasting bear. Imagine our utter surprise and disbelief when on our second lake out from the trailer park, quietly paddling along minding our own business, 50 yards away a female Black Bear and two cubs popped out of the undergrowth.

Astonished doesn't really do the occasion justice as we all watched slack jawed as the happy family crashed their way through the vegetation for about 200 metres, and then dived back into the forest. Two canoes raced towards where they had been to see if they could get a better look, and then raced back 10 times faster when our guide quickly pointed out that it was probable daddy bear was nearby, and keeping a discreet and very protective eye on his rellies. From that moment onwards the whole attitude of the group changed. It became almost reverent towards all things Canadian and natural. For the next two days we swam in the lakes, played in waterfalls, fished for trout we knew we would never catch, cooked on log fires, and generally behaved in a way Grizzly Adams would have been proud of. Cook-ups at the end of a tough days canoeing, when you think you can relax and relieve sore muscles, can be very hard on the nerves. With a smoking log fire and the wafts of a pasta sauce drifting past your nose amplifying an already enormous hunger, you almost become psychotic in your need to get at, the very least, an equal share of the food. However, you are not only competing for it with your fellow humans.

Bear attacks on humans are rare, but in nearly all cases they occur in food related incidents. Sitting in a circle, all carefully watching each other, acutely aware after seeing them that real live bears were around us, you couldn't help but notice how jumpy everyone was becoming to the slightest crack or warble from the very black undergrowth.

Our bright idea to prevent any unpleasant events from happening was to scoff the food down as quickly as possible, and make for our incredibly sturdy tents pretending the scent of garlic, onions, tomatoes and raw meat would in no way interest any ravenously hungry bears. Convincing huh?

It has to be said though, in those most private of moments, away from the group and with only a loo roll to protect yourself in the eerie forest, it became difficult to determine why we needed the loo in the first place.

Was it simply the call of nature? Or, was it the fact that nature might come calling? Fortunately, we never found out.