Until then, my trips — in places like Algonquin Park, a few hours north of Toronto — had invariably involved plotting a circular route through a series of placid lakes connected by portage trails, in order to end up back at my starting point.
The project has involved painstaking work, to plot and then visit the exact Lake District locations depicted in Wainwright's books, before painting full colour versions of the views as they exist today.
The plot has involved seizing farms, intimidating supporters of the opposition party, charging its leaders with treason, harassing the press, arresting dissenters, disenfranchising citizens, expelling monitors, ignoring court rulings, obstructing voters and spreading violence throughout the land.
For most successful cartoons in the last decade or so, that formula has involved giving children fun characters, plot lines that don't condescend, and knowing winks to the adults in the audience.
But Mr. Hain declined to comment on reports in some publications that they had involved a plot against Heathrow Airport.
If he was not innocent, it meant that the organizers had involved in their plot a young man who shared Politkovskaya's beliefs, had worked on some of the same issues; who was bright, eager, and extremely sweet and personable; who'd known perfectly well that Politkovskaya was a "very decent and upright person".
On Monday, Pakistani officials expressed outrage that the fake plot had involved a diplomat from their country, calling the scheme "bizarre" and "dangerous".
Government officials said the plot had involved sending suicide bombers, their vehicles packed with explosives, to blow themselves up at the Ministries of Defense, Health and Trade, and at other public places, including markets.
Police commanders have said that some recent terrorist cases, including the Heathrow plot, have involved complex investigations reaching into a web of interlinked terrorist cells, and the decryption of evidence found on hundreds of seized computers and the examination of thousands of computer disks.
He said MI5 was aware of "several thousand individuals in this country who I would describe as supporting violent extremism or are engaged in it" and "almost all" of the plots had involved some of "these people".
