A boat name to sail on

Since the moment I made the decision to buy my sailboat, I have dwelt a lot on what defines me as I sought out a name for it.

I’ve brainstormed names, picked one, then another, and second-guessed them all. It’s nearly been a daily think tank for three and half months.

However, I’ve made a final choice. Quite simply the best name ever.

I was nicknamed “Little Miss” by a friend of mine who understood me and my journey through some tough hardships. “Little Miss” is the name of a 2010 country hit song by the duo “Sugarland.”

Both the band and the song have been long time favorites of mine. To his credit, my friend was fairly accurate calling me “Little Miss.”

I’m tough, I do my best, I never rest. Sometimes I do give up, hide my scars and yet, I go far. And I am so much more than I like to talk about. I have had more than one brand new start and I believe that sometimes “you gotta lose til’ ya win.”

I am defined by all of it, but “Little Miss” isn’t the name I chose for my boat.

I love my country of Canada. I passionately love where I live in it and I cannot imagine moving away from Rainy Lake, ever.

The sunsets here are spectacular, the air is fresh, and there is a world of adventure at nearly every turn.

“Canadian Skye” is another of my favourite songs. It makes my heart leap when I hear the band “Spirit of the West” sing it.

But “Canadian Skye” isn’t the name I chose for my boat either.

“True North.” I am a northerner. I am true. I try to wear my heart on my sleeve as much as I can, because life is short and I don’t want to waste it by hiding—even if its risky.

I am my own “True North.” Certainly that does define me.

But “True North” isn’t the name I chose for my boat either.

I want to live and cruise on my boat and take it all in.

“Vista Cruise” was a dead ringer for me. It encapsulated the two words that depicted why I bought the boat in the first place.

But alas, one day I would be sailing near Belize and come under the shadow of the future “Carnival Vista Cruise liner.” That just wouldn’t do. 

So of course, “Vista Cruise” isn’t the name I chose for my boat either.

Between 1920 and 1922 my grandfather John Murdoch Caldwell wrote love letters to his sweetheart and fiancée Pearl Davis. I have 60 of those love letters still in their original envelopes.

The loving words my grandfather wrote to my grandmother are exquisite. Every one of the 60 letters, still as legible as the day he wrote them, speak volumes about what a kind, gentle, loving soul he was. 

Sometimes he slipped violets in the letters, and there they remain, pressed between the notes of his heart for 94 years.

He began nearly every letter with “Dear Buddy.” I will never know where he found that term of endearment for my grandmother, but by the looks of the envelopes torn open by her fair hand, she could hardly wait to read what he’d written.

Grampa Caldwell was a gunner with the 35^th Battery of the Canadian Field Artillery in World War I. He fought in Europe and he survived to come home, fall in love, and raise a family of five children, one of whom is my father, Bruce.

I was lucky to be able to spend summers of my youth with my Grampa Caldwell. I loved him and he loved me right back.

60 love letters to his sweetheart, some of them signed “Johnnie,” but most were signed with a name that I can only imagine defined him in the war, and once home, as my grandmother’s loving watchman.

“Scout.”   Quite simply the best boat name ever.