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Steve, we have rocky rivers in the east, too. But I agree, a bare wood pole will quickly wear out. I have copper pipe end caps and hanger bolts on the ends of my wood pole. Here's a photo, and it tells you the pole hasn't been used in a while. The copper is bright and shiny after use. I think...

My first time polling, I used a borrowed pole that had an iron shoe. I've never used a pole with a shoe since that time. I recall that iron-tipped pole did get to the bottom fast. And all I had to do was drop the pole, and the shoe pulled the pole down quick. Other than that, I don't see the...

I don't think it is unusual, but I've used "wet bags" as ballast. That's a dry bag with the water on the inside. The beauty of the wet bag is that it weighs next to nothing when empty, so you can portage with it if necessary. Strap it to the carry handle after filling to hold it upright.

Question for you wool pants guys--Many of the wool pants described in the above-linked vendors' sites are to be dry cleaned. Do you take your wool pants for dry cleaning? That's probably a deal breaker for me. I've been wearing summer weight pants all year. They are fine for walking down to 30...

Thanks for the info on 3-seat canoes. Sounds like they are not that uncommon, I once had, on loan, a 15' Dagger Reflection with three seats. I paddled it solo and thought it pleasant to paddle, but I didn't think I'd like it with three full-size people aboard. I believed that biased my thinking...

Swift calls it a three-person canoe. I’ve seen three-seat canoes before, but always thought them tandem canoes with a middle seat for when you want to paddle them solo. Swift’s description of the Lavieille makes it sound like they intend the boat to be paddled by three people. Is that something...

I have a Bending Branches 260 double blade I got to use canoeing. It weights 2 lbs, 9 oz. I only found it useful in headwinds, and truthfully, I'm just not strong enough to swing that blade. You sit higher in the canoe than in.a kayak or pack boat, so you need a longer paddle. At 260, the blade...

We are canoeists. What's a rudder? Once I went to the Pa. solo canoe rendezvous at that little Coopers "Lake" pond in PA. There were lots of canoes from vendors pulled up at pond edge. Unbeknownst to me, somebody had found a bunch of big bird feathers and gone around inserting them, upright, in...

I repaired a well-ripped, carbonlite kayak a few years back. I got it watertight but couldn't get some of the ripples out, more so on one side than the other. Paddled, it wanted to slightly pull to the right. I passed that boat on (for a rock bottom price) to a woman who has never mentioned that...

I have an Appalachian that I use when polling. It's not a solo boat, but I pole it solo.

Way back in Venice history (tenth to thirteenth centuries), they rowed with oars on each side. As the waterways became more crowded, they adopted the one-side approach to rowing, to make it easier for boats to pass in the narrow canals. Yet, the curved hull didn't come along until the sixteenth...

It’s gotten to the point where I sea kayak more than I canoe. On large, open waters such as we have in coastal Maryland, I like my sea kayak. For me, the sea kayak is much faster. Some may be able to paddle their canoe as fast as a sea kayak, but I’m not one of them. I’ve taken my Rendezvous...

Through the aughts, a pair of candle lanterns were staples on my gear list. I almost took them camping Veterans Day, as campfire substitutes during the fire ban. But I was out of replacement candles, because I never use them anymore. The lanterns have been replaced in the pack with the Luci...

A guy I know moved to South America around 2010 and I ended up with was his truck tent. The truck tent was supposed to mate to a pick up truck with a cap over the bed. With the tent set up, you could back your truck up to the tent and the tent became a living room attached to the cap. I used to...

That brings back memories! When I first started tripping the friend who organized the trip insisted we all carry maglites, so if one failed we could pirate parts from it. Remember holding a mag lite in your teeth when you needed both hands to cook or set up your tent? I suppose with LEDs the...

Winner, winner, tofu dinner! Recped nailed it--that thing is definitely an AMF Sur-Trek 8x8. rec-ped's link to to the AMF video on YouTube didn't work for me, but I found another AMF video that was just about the Sur-Trec. Nine-plus minutes of the Sur-Trek surmounting any terrain, accompanied...

Camped at Assateague over the Veterans Day weekend, and there was a fire ban in effect. Dark at 5pm, and we dined by headlamp. I brought a candle thinking we could socialize around the candle as a symbol of a fire. We made it to a little after 7 before we hit the tents. People will socialize...

Well, I know this is a canoeing forum, and this definitely has nothing to do with canoes. But I paddled at Assateague last week and came across this wrecked, some-sorta vehicle next to the ruins of the Bunting Lodge. If you know what it might have been, I'd like to know. It looks like it had a...

I just lost a Kindle two weeks ago. I was reading it while waiting for shuttle drivers to return and distinctly remember stuffing it in my dry bag, along with the big parka I had on during the wait. I opened the bag at our lunch stop. I put on the parka and returned it to the bag when we got...

There have been a few trips where I shared a tent with a friend, but mostly, I'm solo in a 2- or 3-man tent. At home, I sleep by myself, and it is uncomfortable to share a bed, with the exception of sharing with intimate partners, and there's not much of that at my age. I snore. My Neo-air is...