Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families. For Thanksgiving I shared a few lines on Facebook and X, with some photographs of my son and I on the marsh. They gather nicely the essence of this Thanksgiving holiday.
A Canadian Thanksgiving isn’t about the big turkey dinners or shooting limits of ducks and geese. It’s about beautiful sunrises and sunsets. It’s about your son’s first duck. It’s about making memories. Happy Thanksgiving to all. Take the time to cherish the moments.
Most weeks on Courageous Truth I write about records, methods and limits. That work continues, and it matters to the families who depend on it. Thanksgiving asks for a different kind of record. It is the record of what we have been given, and of whether we stopped long enough to notice it.
My Son’s First Duck
My son just turned 12. In Ontario, that is the age a young person can join the Ontario Hunter Apprenticeship Safety Program, which is open to residents aged 12 to 14. To take part, he had to pass the Ontario Hunter Education Course (OHEC) and its exam and, to hunt with a gun, the Canadian Firearms Safety Course (CFSC). An apprentice can then hunt under the direct and immediate supervision of a licensed mentor aged 18 or older, and shares that mentor’s firearm.
Those requirements are not a formality. Study of firearm safety, hunting law and wildlife identification comes before a single shot in the field. He scored 98% on the Ontario Hunter Education Course exam, and on the Canadian Firearms Safety Course he scored 92% on the written test and 100% on the practical. Every apprentice learns that safety and respect come first, and that he hunts at his mentor’s side, under his mentor’s eye.
This season, as an apprentice hunter, my son took his first duck, a hen mallard. He held her up at the water’s edge with a smile that said everything. To a father, seeing his face while he held his first duck meant more than shooting a limit of mallards. He’s seen me shoot ducks and now it was his turn. A very proud father moment that is a lifetime milestone that took 12 years to create.
Shooting your first bird is a rite of passage that many people will never experience. To a young hunter it marks a threshold: patience rewarded, a skill learned, and a responsibility accepted. Every hunter learns that what we take from the land is received, not owed, and that it deserves respect. Watching him learn that was worth more than any full limit.
Our children are our future, and we must raise them right: self-sufficient and morally upright. Days on the marsh teach both, patience and self-reliance alongside honesty and restraint. They are lessons a child carries long after the season closes.
Take the Time to Cherish the Moments
Our days fill quickly with work, deadlines and obligations, and mine are no exception. Children grow faster than any of us expect, and the seasons we have with them at our side are fewer than they seem. The memories are what remain. They are made in ordinary hours that we choose not to rush.
So this Thanksgiving, I ask one thing of you. Put down the phone. Step outside. Look at the people beside you, and tell them what they mean to you.
This Thanksgiving I am thankful for the many supporters, friends and colleagues I have worked with over the past year. I am thankful for the many people who have encouraged and supported my calling. Along the way I have met so many wonderful people, from Florida to right across Canada. Each of you has carried this work forward in ways you may never see.
I am thankful for a great family and for health. Neither is guaranteed, and neither should be taken for granted. They are the firm foundation that everything else in my life stands on.
I am grateful for each of you who reads Courageous Truth, and for every supporter who keeps this independent work going. You make it possible to do this work in the open, where anyone can check it. Enjoy your families and your table this weekend. The work continues on the other side of it, and it continues with you.
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Deploy the Blueprint & Hold the Line
Share the Evidence: Send this post to someone you will sit down with this Thanksgiving, or someone you wish you could. Ask them to set aside one afternoon this season to spend outdoors with the people they love.
Join the Conversation: What is one moment from this Thanksgiving weekend you want to remember? Post your answer in the comments below. We are building a permanent record.
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Beautifully said. Can’t believe Hunter is 12!