The camp fire crackles. My son and I stare at it, mesmerised. I look at him and smile. It’s so good seeing him staring at something other than a screen. He was predictably reluctant when I first told him we’d be reviving our Easter canoe trip that we did a couple of years ago. But searching for a positive, he did say he was looking forward to the camp fire. And here we are. One night of nature. “Hey mate – isn’t this great? Just you and me in the bush.” He nods. “I think it’s important for boys your age to do something like this – paddling a canoe for hours and then camping. It doesn’t happen enough.” There’s no reply but no opposition either. I decide to push on. “You know, for thousands of years boys did things like this in order to become men. Do you know about initiations?” He does. He tells me about a clip he saw of an African tribe that make their boys repeatedly stick their hands in gloves full of stinging ants. Ouch! I tell him about seeing the Richard Harris movie, “A Man Called Horse”, where his initiation into a Sioux tribe was to be strung up and hung by his nipples. Double ouch! He asks me why boys are made to suffer such things. “Well, I think the idea is that by suffering through something and then coming out the other side, you learn that you can overcome hardship. A little like this canoe trip. We had to keep paddling to get here. It wasn’t easy and you didn’t always like it but you pushed through and here we are – by the fire.” My son nods, no doubt reflecting that paddling a canoe for a few hours sure beats being hung by your nipples.