Fire in the Bones: Bill Mason and the Canadian Canoeing Tradition

Born in 1929 in Winnipeg, Mason was raised in a family dominated by his fundamentalist Protestant grandmother, so religion played a major role in his life. An asthmatic from birth and an undersized child, he was 4'7"" and an object of ridicule until he reached puberty at the age of 18. Throughout his life he was plagued by gout, had a near fatal heart attack at 36 and died of cancer at 59. But he overcame physical ailments to become one of Canada's best-known and most respected outdoorsmen. He made two documentary films, a series of three on wolves and four in the Path of the Paddle series; the latter established him as the ranking expert on canoeing in North America. Raffan, a professor of outdoor and experiential education in Canada, has researched Mason's life with care, but at times his writing seems more rhapsodic than the subject demands, as when he waxes poetic about a pedestrian summer colony set up by the Canadian National Railroad for its employees, the spot where Mason began to love the wild. Photos. (Mar.)