Discussion: That is so nice!

I love that this birthday tradition is genuinely fun for you both and evolves with you and Finley over time.

Re the barrel: We arrived at the end of a Massasauga Park portage and discovered that Richard's huge backpack was missing from our pile of gear, which we'd carefully placed off to one side to avoid getting in anyone's way. Luckily, we spotted it in a canoe that was already heading away and they heard us shout at them. They were a big group on their first portage and they didn't recognize each other's gear. For some dumb reason, they just threw random stuff in each canoe. They would have had to consciously go to our separate pile of gear and boats and remove a very heavy 25-year-old backpack of an uncommon brand that is no longer made. And they would have to assume that all the other gear around that backpack wasn't theirs - only the backpack. It was very possible that we wouldn't have found them in that big park and it almost ruined our 5-day trip. We were polite but I was seething.

Oh geez! That was the nightmare scenario that I was afraid of with my barrel. Fortunately we were all heading toward the same access point, so there's a chance that Finley and I would have been able to talk to them as they were loading up, but they were paddling much faster than we were, so perhaps not! I was relieved that they realized it at the other end of the portage...likely when they were loading up their boat and realized they had one barrel too many!

It worked out well for Finley in the end! I guess we could label our gear with pink duct tape or something. Experienced outdoor trippers know exactly which items go in their canoe in which place so there’s no risk of them paddling off with anything but parks are attracting more inexperienced people now. I could see portaging something by mistake because I was trying to be helpful, only if it seemed certain that a piece of gear belonged to our group. If there were multiple groups, I’d probably err on the side of being less helpful, just in case.