…and I can’t sleep. I spent a good chunk of the day working on the Rec Kayak DVD that I’m producing with my business partner in Quietwater Films, Jeff Bach. Video production is, well, a lot like work, but I’ll have it done for the Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake City. We leave Tuesday. Nothing like last minute production issues to ruin an otherwise good afternoon.
Then again…there’s always this to look forward to:
I had a great Monday off last week. Besides the paddling, the biking was excellent too. The Badger State Trail is the newest rails to trails bike path to open just a few miles south of here. We rode about 20 miles or so, and enjoyed the 1200 foot long tunnel (except when I ran into the side of the tunnel, which was sorta cool too).
Hansi from Wenonah Canoe visited us on Wednesday. The new stuff for 2008 looks great, can’t wait to see it in person at the big show. It’s always fun to hang with Hansi, we spent a few hours working on a spreadsheet to calculate pricing, it was geeky fun (and useful too).
My kids are the best. They got me a firepit for the backyard (with some help from Mom), then Ian decided to have a ceremonial burning of his math notebook. He likes math, but his math teacher…not so much. The firepit makes it legal to burn campfires in the backyard, so now we’re legal.
My kids play a digital camera game where they are told to look like something bizarre. I think Whitney invented it. So the person taking the picture says, “You’re a constipated mongoose.” The kids then try to appear as a constipated mongoose. And we take a picture. Improv meets Nikon.
No damage to the body, really, but the driver’s side tire took a whack, bending the whole steering mechanism, and probably destroying the hub and bearings. I have no idea if the 4WD is damaged yet.
It’s only the day before the busiest time of the year. It’s not like I really need a vehicle that can haul canoes and kayaks and pull trailers.
So my first reaction was anger and sadness mixed all up in a steaming pile of emotional compost. The fact that I got hit was annoying. The fact that someone then drove away without leaving any details was what really made me mad/hurt/steaming.
That person is inconsiderate. That person is rude. That person is bad. That person is evil.
I wished that karma would catch up and soon. I wanted them to be on the hit side of a hit-and-run. I wanted them to feel what I felt. That’s fair. That’s karma.
Well, it’s not about fair, and it certainly isn’t about karma.
Many years ago I needed to find a place to sit and think. Pooh would call it his thotful spot, a place he went to think.
I have half a dozen thotful spots, but one of my favorites is a small sandbar on the Lower Wisconsin. It’s barely big enough for a tent and a small one at that. But it has a high bank behind it and several large cottonwoods that have been down so long they’re free of bark.
I don’t camp there, it’s too close to a put-in, but I can paddle upstream from the landing and be there in an hour or so, depending on the current. I take a kayak, since it’s a large, wide, sandy-bottomed river, and paddling against a 3 mph current is not much fun in a boat that likes to go 3.5. It’s a treadmill, not a trip.
It’s gone now.
It was cold the last time I went there, late in the fall, but a very sunny day. As I came around the downstream point of the island I was grateful for the cool day, as I wasn’t sweating like a dyslexic bingo caller. I hit the beach, my kayak bow sliding up the beach with a soft kiss.
The wind started to come up a bit, so I turned my kayak on its side against the big cottonwood, creating a small windbreak, and lay down on my belly in the sun, which was warm in the absence of wind. It wasn’t the heat that comes from a fierce August sun, but it was still warm, powered by a nuclear reaction 92 million miles away.
The top inch of sand was toasty, but under that it was already cool and moving toward cold. I scraped the warm sand into a pile and stuck my fingers in it like I was dipping them in a finger bowl at a fancy schmancy dinner in Edwardian England. It was delicious.
I had my tiny little notebook with waterproof paper and started writing and doodling a little. The wind picked up more, blowing upstream, which meant that my advantage of having current was being erased. Someone reversed my treadmill.
The wind spun the stems in circles. Windy day.
I pulled out the Svea 123 and lit it up in a conflagration that always accompanies the lighting of a vintage self-pressurizing stove. Priming starts the process, but as the little brass tank figures out its equilibrium between heat, air, and fuel. Once it settled down I started making some tea.
Back on my belly again, I watched a small beetle walk across my notebook. I had no idea what would bring a little iridescent beetle out to see me; maybe I plopped down on top of him. That was more likely. It took him several minutes to walk across my page. I followed his path with my pencil until he crawled back onto the sand and was off to his next adventure.
The tea was too hot, but the wind cooled it quickly, so I drank it greedily, grateful for the warmth. I ate a bagel for ballast as much as calories and thought about moving, but turned over and stayed there on my back until the feeling passed. I put my hood up to keep the sand out of my eyes, and listened to the grains of sand hit my ears. I realized that if I stayed there for a few decades the sand would eventually blast away my hood, and if I stayed longer, my head.
I snoozed a little, I think, but eventually the call of the world told me I needed to paddle back to the truck to get home for dinner. I loaded up, took a last look at the thotful spot and launched, paddling into the teeth of the wind. I turned the truck on and cranked the heater while I loaded the canoe, and headed home, fingers alternating in front of the vents on the dashboard, the other hand on the wheel.
The following year, spring flood had washed over the big cottonwood, pushing it downstream a few yards, enough to eliminate the eddy that had created the sandbar, and the flood scoured the area down to nothing. There was no structure behind it to catch the sand, so it flowed downstream and settled on the bottom of the riverbed.
My thotful spot was gone. I could recognize where it had been, thanks to the shifted-but-still-present cottonwood, but that was it. I would have to be thoughtful somewhere else.
The beautiful thing about a river is its transience. I mourned my thotful spot for about ten seconds, realizing that the only thotful spot is between your ears; the place was only a catalyst.
The next time I paddled in that area I found that the currents had shifted a little, a tree branch had bent toward the water, and a baby sandbar had started to form. Willows were encroaching on the edge of it where organic matter had been trapped, and it looked like in a couple of years, floodwaters willing, there would be a new thotful spot for me.
Sometimes I forget that there are places without access to nature in the abundance we enjoy in the Midwest. The ability to get into nature in a few minutes is one of the many things that attracted me to southern Wisconsin.
I was reminded of this last month when I visited New York City to see my daughter, a tree-hugging nature-loving dirt scientist who teaches special education in the fifth largest population center in the world. Over 23,000,000 people live within an hour of the apartment where I am writing these words.
We’re on an island, about 23 square miles, bounded by a river and two estuaries, and with no natural lakes or ponds. The Hudson, East and Harlem Rivers are the only water available to paddlers, and much of that is inaccessible because of breakwaters and seawalls. There’s almost no way to actually touch the water.
I lived here over 40 years ago as a young man (barely). I was a missionary for my church. I could tell countless stories about growing up a lot from 1981 to 1983. The main effect was that I learned to love Italy, Italians, and the beautiful language, history, literature, and of course, the food. Of course. Thefood. But mostly, Italians.
Specifically, I’m in Puglia (pool-ya, not puh-glee-uh), the heel of the boot that is Italy. Tourists from the US rarely visit here, since Puglia doesn’t have any large cities to attract people who want to check things off lists. Puglia has no Roma, no Milano, no Firenze, no Venezia. It does have the archetypal Canus stradalis italii. Street dogs are abundant.
To me, the attraction is that there are no loci of attraction. Bari, the largest city, is nice enough, and the old town is rustically beautiful, now that it has been mostly rid of pickpockets and other unsavories.1 Despite its beautiful cathedrals and crumbly Romanesque architecture, it’s no Siena.
So yeah. The main attraction of Puglia is Puglia.
We visited quite a few small cities to enjoy the city centers with their small old centers with winding streets, dead ends. Maps are for the weak. Getting lost is more than half the fun. Cisternino for its meats, Locorotondo for its beauty, Martina Franca for its gateway to the Valle d’Itria, one of the most beautiful places on earth.
The Itrian Valley is loaded with trulli, conical structures with dry-stacked stone roofs, mostly so they could dissemble them before the barons sent around the tax collectors. Unfinished rooms were not taxed, and since tax evasion is a national sport in Italy, it stands to reason. Just a few key stones removed, shaped like coda di rondine (dovetailed), and the thing would almost collapse.
Tax collector leaves, roof is restacked.
We visited Matera. Technically, it’s in Basilicata, one of the poorest regions in Italy. The sassi are the caves/houses people lived in, with malaria and typhoid a constant threat, so in the 1950s the residents were forcefully evicted to the modern town. A few people still live down in the sassi, and I love the colors and textures. It is also the opening scene of the last 007 film with Daniel Craig, No Time To Die.
Puglia has a way of interacting with death that is raw and uncut. Compared to the north, I find far more Momento mori imagery. It’s sorta fun in that it’s omnipresent and folksy, and the artists who created the paintings or sculptures or bas reliefs were no respecters of persons. A skull with a bishop’s mitre is as legit on a church door as anything. I can’t help but think they’re equaminius with all signs and images.
All in all, Puglia is poorer in income, but has an extremely rich palimpsest of architecture, culture, language, food, and in my mind, it’s way more interesting than Roma. Because poor people, when push comes to shove, find ways to get things done. Grano arso is a good example.
Grano arso means “burned grain” and originates from the abject poverty inflicted on all the farmers and peasants in the 17th century. The poor would gather individual grains that were toasted or burned by running through the fields of grain, often still smoldering from the farmer’s fires to burn down the chaff. That’s what hunger does to a person.
It turns out it has a nostalgic flavor for many, and after 300 years, you can buy it…in southern Italy, and that’s about it. I’ve never seen it in the US. If you can find grano arso flour, you can make pasta yourself.
Usually the pasta in Puglia centers around orecchiette, or “little ears.” It’s often cooked with a more bitter southern type of brassica related to broccoli, or with beet or other more bitter greens. If you want to try it, here’s a recipe.
I brought back a few (dozen) kilos of pasta, homemade and otherwise, and a load of grano arso. I’ll wait until Summer when the brassica rape or beet greens or whatever I can find is ready to harvest. Substitutions are a Puglian specialty, through necessity.
Respectfully submitted,
Canoelover
My friend’s grandfather was murdered in Bari Vecchia back in the 50s. So yeah. Unsavories.
I wrote this story last year for the Isthmus, our local indy paper. Enjoy if you will.
52 decibels. Sitting on the porch.
My dog Lucy is a hundred pounds of muscle, fluff, and exuberance. Our block is a major canine thoroughfare, so every 10 minutes or so, her exuberance is vocalized. She has a throaty bark that bounces off the wood floors and creates sympathetic vibrations on my banjo strings long after the barking has stopped.
Luckily she is generally quiet and the neighbors have dogs as well, so they get it. But I can tell you that when she lets out a woof, it is irritating at best and painful at worst. I live close to a major road in Madison. It carries four lanes of traffic from Fitchburg and Verona to University Avenue, so it’s significant white noise. 58 decibels at peak traffic.
I’m not complaining, mind you. It’s a simple fact that humans create noise, both naturally and via technology. As I write this I’m listening to a Bach violin concerto (52 decibels). It’s a pleasant noise, but noise nonetheless. I turn it off and the room drops to 42. Just the air conditioner.
42 dB: Front yard, 10:30 p.m., letting the dog out before bed.
In the state of Washington, there is one square inch of land that is alleged to be the quietest place in the United States. It’s in the Hoh Rain Forest on the Olympic Peninsula, 47.865972 North, -123.870361 West, to be exact. The woods, mosses and organic materials act as natural sound deadeners. It’s more than 11 miles from the closest road. It’s the place in the U.S. with the least sound pollution, sound from unnatural sources.
The One Square Inch was the brainchild of Gordon Hempton, a sound recorder whose auditory images can only be described as art. Placing microphones inside a giant dead sitka spruce as the ocean breezes blow across its massive opening creates a thrumming that sounds like the huge dead tree is very much alive.
Hempton’s art consists of capturing the sounds of the natural world. He doesn’t believe quiet places are absent of sound: they are absent of artificial sounds. The sounds that can hurt.
Sound pollution isn’t just annoying, it’s deadly. According to the World Health Organization, noise pollution is one of the most dangerous environmental threats to health. And according to the European Environment Agency, noise is responsible for 12,000 premature deaths and 48,000 new cases of heart disease every year. That’s almost 50,000 heart attacks from noise. On top of that, there’s tinnitus, stress, fatigue, tachycardia, hypertension and a host of other maladies.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, is the noisiest city on the planet, with an average measurement of 119 decibels. That’s an insanely high number. It also bounces between being the second and fourth most air-polluted city in the world, so let’s just say the folks at the visitors and convention bureau have their work cut out for them. How people survive there is mind-boggling. The answer is simple, though: because they have to. But 119 decibels: that’s the same as a jackhammer. Constantly.
93 dB. Splitting wood. Wearing noise-canceling earbuds under headphones.
My neighbors are okay with me running an 8-horsepower Briggs and Stratton driving a 20-ton splitter so long as they get to raid the woodpile now and then. It’s a monster that makes quick-ish work of four full cords of ash and bur oak that’ll heat the house for a few winters. My chainsaw is even louder and downright irritating, but hearing protection stays on a hook right next to the saw. Ain’t no one using that thing without protection.
So what’s a city-dweller to do? I live in a quiet part of town near the Arboretum. Even so, the drone of the Beltline permeates the forest and it’s decidedly not quiet even there. But unless you think about it, you don’t hear that either. There’s a reason they call it background noise.
Maybe that’s why I need nature so much. Not just nature, but quiet nature.
44 dB. Sitting in a canoe in the middle of Mann Lake, Vilas County.
It’s not super quiet here, but it’s not the quantity of the sound; it’s the quality. No road noise from the end of the lake I’m at. That’s the quality part. The birch trees are going to make noise no matter what, even with a light breeze. That’s fine: birch trees make the best white noise. White pines have a higher pitch that’s soothing as well. I pulled my canoe and sat down on the pine needle duff. 36 decibels if I put my decibel meter on top of the sound-absorbing bed of duff, and there’s no significant wind.
You don’t have to go to the wilderness to experience that sort of quiet, but it helps. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is one of several designated quiet parks worldwide. Hempton worked hard to establish a quiet park designation. Wilderness Watch successfully sued the military to prevent flights over the entire area: a major victory for quiet. It has over a million acres free from human-created noises other than the ones we visitors cause.
If you want quiet and dark, the BWCAW is like a magnet for the silence-starved soul. The flat surface of the water carries sound farther than land, since there are no obstructions to block the sound waves. A loon call can travel a mile down the lake. Surreal.
The permit required to enter the BWCAW has a list of do and do-nots. Number 11 says (emphasis theirs), “A QUIET CAMPER IS A NO-TRACE CAMPER. WHY? Noise impacts other people’s solitude and scares off wildlife.”
I don’t understand the need to carry a bluetooth speaker into the wild places, but I hear them more than I’d like. I think it’s because we are used to using sound as company, or to block out the thoughts we’d rather not think about.
31 dB. Dead calm, on the shore of Pallette Lake.
This is the quietest I have experienced since I started keeping track, quiet enough that I could hear some ringing in my ears. The ringing is called phantom noise and when the surroundings are that quiet, you hear it for sure. If you hear phantom noise, it really is that quiet.
Of late I have become more sensitive to human-made sounds. I find them more irritating than I used to, and now I wear earplugs to concerts: I’m that guy now. I think my sensitivity started soon after I had a cardiac event that could have easily taken my life if I were more than 10 minutes from the emergency department at University Hospital. Whatever the reason, it’s real, and I find myself working more and more without any background music. I’m more than comfortable with quiet; I crave it. And as Gordon Hempton says, “When you save quiet, you save everything.”
It’s been 15 months since the LAD STEMI knocked me down a few rungs on the Ladder of Life. Okay, it sorta threw me off the Ladder of Life and I landed in the Thorny Rosebush of Reality and rolled off onto the Pile of Dog Poop I Missed of Unpleasantness.
The good news is that I had my echocardiogram last month. Most folks think of echos for babies in utero, which is a lot easier since there are no ribs to work around. My tech was an expert at just hearts, from neonates to old farts. He took a bunch of video and snippets for the cardiologist.
The results were as follows:
SUMMARY: 1. Normal left ventricular size and wall thicknesses, with normal systolic function. 2. Left ventricular ejection fraction, by visual estimation, is 65%. 3. Normal pattern of left ventricular diastolic filling. 4. Right ventricular size is normal. Right ventricular global systolic function is normal. 5. Right atrial pressure is normal. In comparison to the previous echocardiogram(s): Prior images from examinations are available and were reviewed for comparison purposes. The prior study used for comparison was dated 12/1/2022. The wall motion and EF have improved.
Left Ventricle: Normal left ventricular size and wall thicknesses, with normal systolic function. Ejection fraction, by visual estimation, is 65%. The parameters of diastolic function are normal. Left ventricular strain is normal. LV Regional Function: No evidence of any regional wall motion abnormalities. All segments are normal.
Some of the key findings were noteworthy.
I am healed. No sign of permanent damage which is crazy rare.
I wrote a post several years ago about how many canoes I have. Some of you asked me what has changed since then, I wanted to update y’all. A lot of change, as you may imagine.
Because of my profession, I try to be brand-agnostic or at least brand neutral. I believe that the canoes we sell at the shop are the best brands to choose from, otherwise I wouldn’t sell them, lest you think I’m shilling product. I’m not.
Numbers One, Two, and Three: 18′, 16′ and Willow, built by Island Falls Canoe.
I have a 18′ and 16′ Wilderness, and a 15′ Willow Solo. The biggest one paddles like a dream, holds a ton of gear, and is a great workout on a portage. So it doesn’t go on many trips where there are portages, and I don’t upload it (or try not to unload it) by myself.
The 16 footer is flatter on the bottom, so it’s a little slower, but it floats over shallow water and is a great boat for poling. I just had it recanvased by my friend Dave Osborn. He is trying to retire but I keep on throwing boats in his direction.
The Willow is one of my favorites. I wrote about it here and here. The second here is an addendum that is worth reading. It is still as efficient as a Prius with a tailwind and still just as cranky, but I swear she paddles herself.
Willow, paddled by Whitney Sara.
I purchased none of them new. The 18′ wasn’t paddleable until restoration, the 16 had the canvas rotted under the gunwales (barn find), and the Willow had a bunch of cracked ribs from being paddled with less care than is befitting a lady of that stature and grace.
So that’s all for the wood boats. I think. Probably. Do I want another one? Duh. I would love a Rushton Indian Girl or a 17′ B.N. Morris Model A, Type III. But it would be the height of avarice to lust after one.
Number Four : Swift Keewaydin 17
This is my tripper. Fast, light, and neutral, if that means anything. To me it means it has no bad habits, paddles well in a quartering sea (the test of a good canoe, in my opinion), and is pretty. I went all out on the layup and went carbon with integrated carbon gunwales, A 17 footer that weighs just under 40 pounds is great for BWCA trips.
I wrote a review about this (and other 17-footers) for Men’s Journal several years ago. Lots of pictures there.
Number Five: Northstar Phoenix
Ian takes the Phoenix for a spin. Bittersweet State Natural Area.
I really like this canoe. She’s pretty in a not-so-sleek sort of aesthetic: a little zaftig if you will. The tumblehome makes it easy to reach the water but she’s still rock-solid stable in an aggressive lean. I don’t paddle long skinny solos; she’s fast enough for me. The construction is Northstar Canoes’ IXP, a cloth woven from basalt fibers and Innegra, an aramid fiber and cousin to Kevlar. She flexes when you hit things, and I use this boat a lot on shallow rivers and up to Class II+. She can take it. If you can only have one boat, especially as a novice solo paddler, she’d be a good choice.
Number Six: Curtis Companion
The first open canoe I ever owned. It’s a solo-tandem that actually does both well, Great to paddle with my babies (all grown up now) and with my old lab Gracie. She’s heavy for a 15-footer, as Curtis overbuilt their boats and hand-laminated them. No matter how many skills you have hand-laminating, it’ll never hit the weight of vacuum-bagged or resin-infused boats. Another Dave Yost design, she’s also a little zaftig.
I had many wonderful experiences in this canoe. Gonna leave it at that.
Also a nice solo for beginners.
Number Seven: Lotus Egret
This one was a barn find and she is in fine condition, after I gave her a good scrubbing and oiled and sanded the gunwales several times. The Egret came from the lofting board of Mike Galt, the late iconic canoe designer and builder. His canoes are all elegant and well-crafted, and my guess is he lost $100 on every boat he built and tried to make it up in volume. He was relentless in his quest for quality.
He was also a controversial character. In the 1980s and 90s, canoe designers were a quirky bunch, and often fought hammer and tongs about what constituted the proper ways to design, paddle, and build canoes. A few managed to stay above the fray, but it got personal. Mike often had a younger female on his arm and a cigarette barely hanging from his lips. A charismatic character he was for sure.
Anyway…the Egret was specifically designed for freestyle canoeing, an activity where paddlers choreograph paddle strokes to music, and sometimes to comedic effect, costumes. I take nothing from the skills of many of these paddlers, but I know few people who take freestyle seriously. A handful of paddlers participate in the national competitions.
As a reult, the Egret paddles beautifully, especially with two people who know what they’re doing. I love paddling her with my wife. She’s not fast but she’s fun. Sort of a Miata of canoes.
Number Eight: Swift Dragonfly
There aren’t many canoes that I’d consider buying a second one just in case the first one wears out. This is one of them.
The Dragonfly has a long and sorta weird history, with some differing opinions of who designed it, who influenced the design. whose idea it was, and all that stuff I try to ignore. It was cetainly influenced by David Yost, a prolific and talented man who has never designed a boat I didn’t enjoy paddling. Some say Harold Deal designed it, but I don’t really know who to trust on the story. My guess is Harold designed it, and then Dave perfected it.
Anyway…it’s a fantastic boat, the fastest 14.5 footer I have ever paddled. It’s also one of the most maneuverable solos I have ever paddled (outside true whitewater boats, naturally). She has less initial stability than many due to her arched, rounded bottom, and she’s lively when getting in and out on a muddy river bank. Between the Phoenix and the Dragonfly, I use the Phoenix more when the water’s cold as she’s more predictable.
Jeremy and me. Matching Dragonflies.
Number Nine: Blackhawk Covenant
This canoe is quirky, like her designer, Pat Moore. Pat was one of the designers I spoke of earlier, one of the ones that weighed in about the true nature of good paddlers and good boats. He was dogmatic and unwavering in his opinions, achieving a zealotry that few matched. I say he was, although I think he may be still alive. He disappeared years ago into the wilds of central Florida.
The Covenant uses a pedestal rather than a seat, which gives you a lot more feedback from the hull than a seat. That’s important, as the Covenant is barely 24 inches wide. She has spit a lot of my friends into the drink after taking a careless stroke. She is probably the most efficient canoe I have ever paddled as far as effort at a cruising speed. The downside is that while comfortable, the pedestal gives you exactly one seating position. I took her on a long paddle down the Wisconsin River, and my ankles too a week to recover.
I am considering selling her, as she rarely gets wet, and that’s a shame. The problem is that there aren’t that many paddlers who can handle her. Not bragging, just saying.
Number Ten: Nova Craft Prospector 16 (Royalex)
This old standby is the Ford F-250 of the canoe world. She’s not particularly fast, but she’s deep and dry, can hold over a thousand pounds, and can take a beating. I’ve paddled her up to just shy of Class III rapids and she handles it just fine.
Royalex is now gone, replaced by T-Formex from Esquif, so mine is from the days when Spartec made Royalex. It’s a horrible material to make as far as the environment goes: it offgases something awful, and the site where they made it in Warsaw, Indiana turned into a superfund site after they closed down production. T-Formex is a lot better environmentally, but boat with the least environmental impact is the one you don’t have to replace.
She lives in a friend’s garage up by the Kickapoo River. I can get it whenever I want, but my friends have two young kids whom I love dearly (I love the parents too), so they have a canoe when they need it.
A great canoe for bulky stuf like a canvas lean-to.
Number Eleven: Nova Craft Pal
If you can only own one boat, she would be a good choice. She’s sort of the Ford F-150 of the canoe world, with less rocker and depth than the Prospector. Flip her around and she’s a fine solo if you paddle Canadian style. She can be paddled backwards with a young child in the stern-now-bow seat and the boat trims out beautifully.
My Pal is Royalex with ash gunwales, so she’s pretty too. And it was the boat I used to train Lucy.
Number Twelve: Chestnut Ogilvy 22″
She’s a beast. Seats six with a load. I should probably sell her, I dunno. 160 pounds dry, and my guess is that she’d hold a few tons of dead moose. The Mack Truck of canoes.
Number Thirteen: The York Birchbark 16 footer.
She’s a beaut, ain’t she?
Number Fourteen: Northstar Pearl, K9 version..
That’s a whole other post.
Of course, this doesn’t include my kids’ boats, a few vintage boats that are more fixtures than anything, or sea kayaks (a handful of them). So I guess we’re at lucky fourteen. Call it an occupational hazard.
I made the strategic error of selecting a dog breed that is hardly a logical choice for a canoe dog. That said, I’d do it all over again. Lucy is the sweetest Great Pyrenees/Newfoundland cross ever bred. She also weighs a solid 100 pounds.
I had been using a gorgeous but ponderous wood canvas canoe, which weighs just a bit less than my dog. I drive a Toyota Tacoma with big tires. Getting it off and on and off again is doable, but it’s only a matter of time before something in my lumbar area starts screaming at me. On top of that, the seat configuration doesn’t leave as much room as I’d like for Lucy to stretch out.
Always watching, Wazowski. Always watching.
My dilemma was easily solved. Because I know a few folks who build boats.
I would build a tandem, but it would be set up as a solo. Lots of room for Lulu, and half the weight or less than the woodie.
I had been working on a canoe with Charlie, the rocket scientist at Northstar Canoes. I am not a designer, but I have lots of experience in canoes and came up with a performance profile; what the canoe should do in the situations for which it is built. Charlie took my idea and got to work, and off his lofting board came the Pearl, a sweet little sixteen footer, symmetrical and rather traditional in style. It’s a light tandem, but performs well as a solo too. Or in my case, a solo and a half.
The Pearl is a perfect boat for my application. I made an appointment and Bear at Northstar squeezed me into the schedule.
Putting in the cloth. Carefully.
A laminated boat is constructed in several steps, and there are waiting periods. To save time, the first layer was put in the afternoon before my arrival so it could cure overnight. They call this skinning the boat.
The next morning I arrived bright and early, ready to get sticky. Truth is, if you pay attention to what you’re doing, you hardly get any resin on you at all. We placed the pre-cut layers in the mold, adding more layers where they’re needed for reinforcement. We worked quickly but carefully, and it only took about twenty minutes to complete the layers. The mold was then moved into an area where it was vacuum bagged. This technique uses vacuum to pull the layers together and squeeze out any excess resin. It’s a precise technique: too much vacuum and you pull out too much resin. Too little, and you get excess resin in places you don’t want it.
Jerry. E6 gunwale master.
With that done, I had some time to kill, so I killed it by building boat parts with Jerry. Jerry is a character, who started building boats on the production line, but found he did well in a quieter room with more complex processes. Not that building a boat is not complex; it is. But doing resin infusion on seats and gunwales is fussy work, and a small error means you have to throw a few hundred bucks in the dumpster. He allowed me to assist on the non-critical steps and watched me like a hawk wearing reading glasses when it was more crucial. He laughed at my jokes and I laughed at his.
The next day Tony and I added the gunwales and figured out where the seat would go to balance my 200 pounds with Lucy’s 100. That made the math easy: 2 feet from the center for me. 4 feet from the center for Lucy. We poked around and found the optimal location, and started drilling holes.
Tony.
The final thing was adding stickers. I felt proud that I had a hand (two, really) in building my own boat. We hung it on the scale: 35.86 pounds. Both my brain and my back rejoiced.
36 pounds of carbon and Kevlar.
Since then, I’ve had Lucy out half a dozen times. She loves the canoe, even jumping in it while on the ground in the front yard, and even staying in it after I went in the house.
Front lawn hangout.Lucy like.Sometimes ya gotta chase geese. Then you figure out reentry.Of course, once you’re back in, ya gotta give Pops a shower.
I am deeply grateful for the folks at Northstar Canoes for letting me undoubtedly slow down production. Thanks to Ted, Bear, and Charlie, and the 12 people who signed my canoe, as a sign of their skill and passion for their work, and in some way, for me, a fellow paddler.
