Bicycling and canoeing are kindred spirits in helping you explore your world, writes Joe Urban (a.k.a. Sam Newberg). In “Pedaling and Paddling in City and Wilderness,” Newberg writes about his experience in a canoe in the northern Minnesota Boundary Waters and its perhaps not-obvious relationship to bicycling through a city:
“Just as the paddle is an “extension of your arm” in a canoe, the bicycle is an extension of your feet, enabling harmony and oneness with the street and buildings around you. As well, a canoe can cut almost silently through water, and a bicycle slices a quiet path through urbanity.”
I shared the piece with a friend who’s a retired UNC Charlotte professor who used to bicycle to campus from East Charlotte and who goes on wilderness canoeing trips each summer. He replied:
“The essay comparing canoeing and bicycling strikes a very strong chord with me. I would rather paddle in the Boundary Waters than be anywhere else on earth, except bicycling to UNCC. The two experiences are so similar in my basal reptilian brain that I dream about them as one thing: flying over the landscape a few feet above the surface with no visible means of support. Jung would have fun with that.”