Although by the time she was about eight months old we began taking her on yearly jaunts to climb the White Mountain range in New Hampshire, we hadn't taken her anywhere else; for example, for prolonged canoe-camping experiences.  On several occasions while she was young she was left with our daughter while we went alpine camping or to do a lengthy canoe circuit in British Columbia with our younger son.

In 1996 we decided to take her on her first Algonquin Park canoe-camping expedition.  She took to it readily enough, but was perturbed quite visibly when I went out on the lake with our son and she was left behind with my husband, who was setting up camp for the day.  He took the time to take a photograph of her waiting, her eyes fixed on our red canoe and us within it, anxious for us to return.  And then, later, he painted the photograph and it has hung for all those years afterward on a wall above the fireplace in our family room.

We're grateful now, in her absence, that it's there.  My husband has picked through our many photograph albums to select those photos that feature her.  And he framed two of them, one with me teasing her with a small stone she wanted me to throw into a fast-moving stream for her retrieval.

 The other, my husband holding her, wrapped in a towel after she'd had a long lake swim.  After being completely drenched to the skin she always felt very cold, and we took care she would not become ill as a result.

Once, this is exactly what happened.  On another Algonquin Park canoe-camping trip we had set out onto the lake in a light drizzle that quickly turned into a heavy downpour.  We tried to keep her covered and dry, but to no avail; she became soaked through, and it was a fall day, brisk and cool.  The rain continued as we set up camp, and wrapped her in a fleecy of my husband's to try to retain her own body warmth.  That night she slept cuddled down deep in our double shared sleeping bag, but I could hear how laboured her breathing was, and the sound of a constant high-pitched gurgle emanating from deep within her chest alarmed me.

That continued throughout the night, and we feared for her.  She was struggling with feeling not herself, and the sound of her breathing was truly troubling.  We decided to pack up camp and head back to the mainland in the morning.  And then, during a long portage the sun suddenly emerged from behind those dense, dark clouds, the clouds soon disappearing, and the sun drying the atmosphere.

It dried and energized her, as well.  Her breathing became normal and she bounced along the trail as though nothing untoward had occurred.