PICK THE CANOE THAT'S BEST FOR YOUR LIFESTYLE
Fred Dyson – Dyson's Starboard View – Messing About in Boats
If you want to be extra stable and "safe", get a canoe with
a flat bottom, that is wide, and has fat ends. If you want
performance and joy, get a long skinny canoe with a round
bottom. Used properly, a canoe shouldn't tip over and the
problem is always the canoeist, not the canoe.
The canoe is a watercraft native to North America that serves an amazing variety of applications - lakes, protected salt water, rivers, and streams.
Canoes are intrinsic to our folklore, culture, and fantasies. Who hasn't seen pictures of Indians in birch-bark canoes, paddling through rapids in autumn forests; Northwest coastal Indian raiding parties in magnificent cedar dugout canoes under sail in Sidney Laurence paintings; the freighter canoes of the French voyagers; or the graceful sailing canoes of the end of last century?
Canoeing can fulfill fantasies of all sorts. Picture yourself paddling a birch-bark canoe down steep rapids pursued by the Brits or French during the 18th century wars. When our kids were small, they were sure that every island they saw on our canoeing trips was inhabited by pirates or smugglers.
By definition, canoes are small open boats driven by paddles. Most are double-ended (that means both ends are pointed) although square-stern boats have been developed to accommodate small outboards.
The earliest canoes were probably made of hollowed logs. The center was removed with fire, stone axes, and adzes.
In the Northwest, cedar trees made for lightweight boats that were easy to construct and resisted rotting. Later developments included stretching the beam of the log canoe by heating water in the interior as longer thwarts (cross-boat struts at the gunwale) were installed.
In the Northeast, birch bark fastened to lightweight frames made beautiful canoes. Lightweight and flexible, those boats could be built or repaired anywhere in the east by using materials available in most forests. With the logging of most of the old-growth birch, it became increasingly difficult to find single sheets of birch bark large enough for a canoe. This forced builders to sew smaller sheets' together and seal them with pitch. American marine museums have very few samples of the single-sheet birch canoes.
In the Arctic, open double-ended boats, sometimes called umiaks, were built of frames covered by sewn walrus or sealskin. These seaworthy vessels were originally paddle- or sail-powered and light enough to be pulled out on the beach or transported across the ice or tundra on sleds. In the golden age of American canoeing, 1870 to 1915, most canoes were wood-planked and covered with canvas or a similar material.
After World War II, aluminum and fiberglass became popular canoe materials, and more recently Kevlar and carbon fiber compounds have provided excellent canoe hulls. These modern materials have reduced the amount of maintenance required and have produced some very light, fast, tough watercraft.
MY IDEAL ALASKA CANOE
Long canoes are fast canoes. The only reason to not have a very long canoe is the weight, maneuverability and the difficulty of navigating tight corners in a small stream.
I once spent a hot afternoon carrying one end of our eighteen-foot canoe over stream banks because it was too long, to make the corners. Long canoes will track better on open waters and in cross winds.
In my opinion, an Alaska canoe should be big enough to carry a field-dressed moose, two big people, and their gear. My 18-foot Grumman safely carried three adults, three toddlers, two dogs and all of our gear (including eight zillion Pampers) for a nine-day trip on the Kenai canoe trails. We packed the boat well and even the dogs knew how to keep the boat trimmed up (level).
As with length, the ideal canoe weight depends on how you plan to use it. But if you are going to carry the canoe through portages or around rapids, I suggest that you keep to canoes under seventy-five pounds. If you have gear and a canoe to carry, you will have to walk through each portage three times. The scenery gets old.
I once took a picture in the Yukon Territory of an Indian couple on the move. She was carrying a large pack - with a sixteen-foot canoe on top. The dogs were laboring under heavy bags slung across their backs. The man was walking ahead, smoking a cigarette, and carrying the rifle. I do NOT recommend this division of labor.
I have carried 120-pound canoes single-handedly, but it is dangerous on rough trails and it takes someone with a size-54 short coat and a number-2 hat. I used to carry 160-pound moose quarters, too, but in those days I was three inches taller and my shoulders sat higher on my frame.
Leave the heavy canoes for Sly Stallone and the brain dead.
Modern materials make very light boats even more practical.
MATERIALS
The advice of a trusted friend who does canoeing similar to yours is a good place to start. The worst modern canoes I have encountered .have been fiberglass. The newest canoes I made of Kevlar or carbon fiber are strong, light, and nothing short of marvelous. The big drawback is price. They approach twenty dollars a pound. Aluminum is a good value but it's noisy and will not give the highest performance.
You can have traditional beauty and good durability with canoes made of cedar strips covered with epoxy resin. They bring tears to the eyes of traditional watermen, but you may have to get a second mortgage on your house if you want to buy one.
SHAPE
If you want to be extra stable and "safe," get a canoe with a flat bottom, that is wide, and has fat ends. If you want performance and joy, get a long skinny one with a round bottom. Used properly, a canoe shouldn't tip over and the problem is always the canoeist, not the vessel.
STYLE
Beauty is still in the eyes of the beholder and taste in canoe styles varies. I like the high curved ends that are reminiscent of the eastern American Indian craft. They give you a little more buoyancy when you stick your bow into a big wave but the critics say the high ends have too 'much exposure in a cross wind. Of course, guys with ears the size of mine don't worry about a few extra square feet of windage. Boats, like romance, should not be too practical. Go with a style that fits your fancy and fantasy.
TOUGH
The Alaska canoe has to be able to withstand bashing into a few rocks and all of the punishment that sun, freezing, shipping, and human abuse will give it. We must have boats that can be easily patched in the field without special equipment. Help is often far away.
SPEED AND HANDLING
I won't put up with a slow canoe or one unable to turn quickly in white water. I don't want a keel.
If I need the boat to track well on long traverses on big waters, I generally have a big load that puts the boat down to where it will track well.
PORTAGING PADS
I am getting fatter, but the tops of my shoulders still have bones sticking out and, I want my canoe to have attachable pads that adjust to the width of my head and ears and distribute the weight of the canoe comfortably on top of my trapezius muscles.
I also want the portaging pads to be slightly forward of the center of gravity of the canoe so that I have to pull down ever so slightly with my hands to balance it. Pushing up is awkward and I like having the canoe balanced so that the bow will lift up when I let go to grab my gun or flashlight if something goes bump in the night.
DECKS
I think that it's reasonable for manufacturers to give us attachable decks to cover the top of the canoe when we want to run white water or to keep our gear dry on long rainy voyages. To my knowledge, no manufacturer is currently doing this.
SAILING
Canoes perform very well under sail and the manufacturers ought to make a sailing rig available for every model. The rig should attach quickly and stow inboard when not in use.
ROWING
Several manufacturers make drop-in sliding-seat rowing rigs that will convert your canoe into a eight-knot, full body, sliding seat, exercise machine that will cover amazing amounts of water in short periods of time effortlessly.
POWER
A well-designed small outboard can push a loaded canoe at hull speed on a thimble-full of fuel. With an unloaded canoe, it is difficult to get the bow down because all of the weight of the outboard and you, the operator, are in the stern. Experienced watermen will put a few big rocks or firewood in the bow to get bow back down in the water. Otherwise, strong winds on the bow can be dangerous.
I do not prefer square stern canoes for small outboards. The control handle sticks right in the middle of your back and is awkward and counter-intuitive to operate. I like a side bracket that puts the carburetor and steering controls on the inboard side of the motor.
My three-horsepower outboard is more than enough power for a twenty-foot freighter canoe.
Bigger motors are mostly a waste and dangerous. Motor lifts can be useful if you run rivers, and most of them require a square stern.
FLEXIBILITY
I want to use my canoe for many purposes so I want the thwarts to come out so I can load and haul big things.
The big things might include a generator or a woodstove going to a remote cabin. For that, I must be able to clear the middle of my canoe of all obstructions.
Being able to take the thwarts out also makes it more convenient to sleep aboard when the bears or mosquitoes make camping on shore a bad idea.
If you have to carry large things like sheets of plywood or out houses, rigidly lash two canoes side by side and lay the load across them. This makes a very stable catamaran. In the South Pacific, canoe catamarans covered thousands of miles quite safely.
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