When my last child was born, I decided to retire early and become a stay-at-home Dad. After thirty years of teaching other people’s children the joys of outdoor and experiential education, it was time to have a classroom of just my son,  It was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

Before he could walk, I backpacked him through every local park and trail we could find. I wheeled him in a stroller to my Faculty of Education classes at York University.I sat him down in the autumn leaves by the edge of a tiny babbling stream so he could listen to the water. I sat him on the chair of a kick sled as we glided along the snowy trails of the Canadian Ecology Centre.

When he could walk, we hiked together everywhere, and worked together at the Caledon-King outdoor campus of the Toronto-Montessori School setting up gardens, orienteering courses and high ropes course challenges. My wife got us hooked on geocaching, so every family road trip became an  adventure. We went on canoe trips, watched the whales spouting from a campsite in Cow Bay, canoe trips in Algonquin Park, camping on Pancake Bay, kayaking in Nova Scotia. It truly was the best of times.

They say the personality is firmly established in those early years, and I hoped his would be rooted in natural systems with every biophilic synapse tingling in his mind. He is a man now, and a fine one. This is also my legacy, that the last child in the woods carries all of those memories, and will keep them alive.

The way I see it.