The next morning, Gina went for her usual early morning paddle on the lake. She wasn’t the only one braving the icy chill. Near the rocky island where the walleye hung out, she spotted Ronnie Kenosha in his double canoe, partnered with a teenage girl.
That must be his granddaughter, Amber. She wasn’t ready to meet her, so she discreetly back-paddled out of sight.
As she did so, she remembered her teacher explaining what canoeing meant in the Ojibwe culture. “It’s a way of perceiving the world,” he’d told her. “In our language, the words for ‘bow’ and ‘stern’ refer to the future and the past. We pass through life as if we were traveling by canoe.”
Maybe that was her problem. Her canoe of life had lost its sense of direction.
After she hauled out her canoe, Gina zipped home for a quick,
