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Then there is the "bushcrafter". Travels in a dugout canoe he took seven years to carve out using a handmade stone-headed adz. Adz is also used to shave head. Constructs a survival shelter out of deadwood, fronds, and twine that he has made by braiding plant fibers together, in order to...

Yes, the easiest solution is just to carry a bent shaft and a straight shaft which is what I usually do on rivers with no, or only mild whitewater. For purely flat water paddling, like most of the Boundary Waters/Quetico trips I have taken, I might take only bent shafts. But even then, it is...

Yes, good point. I overlooked the trolling motor. That could possibly be enough to overcome the inherent buoyancy in the canoe.

I am not at all certain that much styrofoam would provide enough flotation to get both gunwales above the surface over the full length of the canoe. It might but I wouldn't count on it. If that is important to you, test it in a pond and see. If not you could install short 3D end flotation...

Well, it won't go to the bottom of the lake unless you load it with a bunch of stuff that is denser than water that is attached to the canoe. That is because Royalex has inherent buoyancy given it by the expanded "foam core" of ABS inside the sheet. But if it is completely filled with water...

No, I do not climb. But I have found that the asymmetrical friction hitches used by arborists and climbers tied with eye to eye Prusik cords work much better for mechanical drag systems for swiftwater rescue purposes than the old standby three loop Prusik hitch. For a 3:1 mechanical...

If you want a friction hitch for guy lines that is extremely easy to undo, the Farrimond friction hitch is worth knowing. It is a little bit fussier to tie than a tautline hitch or Blake's hitch until you get used to it, but it comes apart in an instant. Tautline hitches in particular seem to...

In terms of fuel economy it really depends on the vehicle, the boat, and how many boats, as well as the average speed driven. Obviously, the cost of aerodynamic drag is dependent on relative air speed. For myself, I have found that carrying a single canoe on my truck or my wife's car typically...

The highwayman's hitch (aka getaway hitch, bank robber's hitch) previously mentioned by cheeseandbeans is a pretty neat hitch that consists basically of a bight within a bight, within a bight hitched around a pole or post. It can be easily tied at any point in a line and does not require access...

If you added two half hitches, and a simple overhand knot and figure of eight knot to that list it would include the knots that I use for about 95% of applications.

The Evenk hitch is really nothing more than a sliding overhand knot tied "slippery" with a quick release loop that is tied in a clever fashion. But it is quite easy to tie, and more importantly, ridiculously easy to untie. Yes, alsg, that is one of the better video demonstrations that I have seen.

It might be helpful if you gave a list of applications that you would like knot suggestions for.

There are a ton of cool knots, some of which have very specialized applications. Among the knots I use most often are the good, old overhand knot, two half hitches, bowline, trucker's hitch, tautline hitch, figure of eight, clove hitch, sheet bend, larks head hitch (aka cow hitch, girth hitch)...

I have briefly pinned a canoe once and a kayak once but neither sustained any serious damage and I have never destroyed one on the river. I have hit rocks and sustained some cracks paddling whitewater rivers in a few boats but they were relatively easily repaired. I did scrape the heck out of...

The stems really don't look that bad. I would check that largest area where the green vinyl has worn off exposing the tan ABS layer by pushing in with your thumb. If it feels soft relative to the surrounding hull then it has been thinned out be abrasion or weakened by photodegradation. If...

I have Thermarest Base Camp pads dating back to the early 1980s that are still going strong. I still like them but they are a bit bulky and take some time and effort to fully deflate. I have used the non-self-inflating pads from Exped when I need something that will pack down smaller and...

Yes. As others have said, you had your epoxy in a cup with a fairly narrow bottom so all of the heat from the exothermic reaction radiated up from the epoxy at the bottom into the epoxy above. Letting the epoxy sit while you went to get more hardener allowed the epoxy you had mixed to "cook...

It has been found that not all AEDs will recommend defibrillation for monomorphic ventricular tachycardia, especially if the electrical rate is 150 bpm or less. Torsade de Pointes is a type of ventricular tachycardia that not all AEDs will recommend defibrillation for.

I would feather the edges of your patches, make sure that the weave of the fabric is completely filled, and sand down any epoxy runs and sags before painting.

Well, you won't have any trouble fitting 10 days worth of gear in an Old Town Columbia. It is a big, long boat at almost 18' but still respectively sleek with a gunwale width of 33 1/2" and a pretty decent waterline width of 31 3/8" so it should move along pretty well for a tandem.