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Badger, here is a link to the Upper James River Water Trail website: https://upperjamesriverwatertrail.com/maps/ And here is a website about the upper, middle, and lower sections of the James. The Middle James, Lynchburg to Richmond, is basically the route of the Bateau Festival...

Welcome to Virginia. It's a diverse state with a variety of environments. MKH has given good advice. The Bateau Festival is sponsored by the Virginia Canals and Navigations Society https://www.vacanals.org/ IME the first day of the festival attracts the party crowd. After they fade away, the...

Senator Kaine has co-sponsored (now 3 times) legislation to establish a 92,000 acre Shenandoah Mountain National Scenic Area in the George Washington National Forest. This area is one of the largest tracts of undeveloped wild habitat east of the Mississippi. The bill is the result of many...

Best campsite ever was on the Spanish River in Ontario, atop a pink granite bluff. Worst campsite was the night before on the same trip. We ran out of daylight and had to camp near a marshy area with beaver lodges. When I woke up the next morning the door of the tent was covered with...

Hi Doogie, and welcome to the forum. There should be plenty of good used canoes on the Richmond Craigslist. If you want a new boat, check out the Appomattox River Company. Their main store is in Farmville, and well worth the trip. They used to have a satellite location near Ashland, but I am...

Now I have a pattern for each end of the thwart, which I clamped to the risers. The middle of the thwart connects to the centerboard case, so a short pattern piece was needed there. Then I bridged between the pattern pieces with scraps of 1 x 4 or 1 x 3. You will just have to imagine the...

The Rossel method for making thwarts is pretty cool. It saves a lot of trial and error, and prevents wasted lumber. The thwart is ash, made from a tree on our property that was killed by the Emerald Ash Borer. The "risers" that the thwart attaches to are glued and screwed to the sides of...

With the centerboard case in place, it's now time to make the center thwart. Like thwarts in a canoe, this component is an important structural element that keeps the sides from spreading apart. In this boat it also stabilizes the centerboard case and serves as a seat. The plans specify a...

A blessing for the backside is always a good thing. Really nice work!

No more Subarus. We have a '17 Forester, now at 91,000 miles. It has had a problem with excessive oil consumption from the beginning. Had I done some research, I would not have bought this vehicle. Excessive oil use is a pretty well known problem with these cars. Reportedly it is...

Some years ago I bought a new truck and wanted a personalized license plate. I had seen "UHUNT" and "UHUNT2," so.............

Do other paddlers think you are making an obscene gesture?

Pilot studies are underway using drones to deliver emergency devices. A Swedish study found that drones were faster than ambulances in most cases. I can forsee this technology being especially applicable to rescues in remote locations...

I'm not a canoe builder, but for other traditional boats the rule is: forms forward of amidships go on the aft side of the station line, while forms aft of amidships go on the forward side of the station line. This setup will place one plane of each form exactly on its appropriate station line...

Good thinkin', Steve. One artifact can start a whole string of speculation.

The river giveth, and the river taketh away. On the Maury River near Lexington, VA, a railroad wheel. It's now a garden ornament. There used to be a railroad, now a rail trail, next to the river. However, this wheel is about 16 inches in diameter and much smaller than a typical...

Yep, turn those disease vectors and hosta-eaters into food! Reducing the number of does is the key to population control.

A long and pretty technical article about the disease we get from those pesky little bugs. https://reference.medscape.com/slideshow/tick-borne-illnesses-6006369?ecd=wnl_critimg_240705_mscpref_etid6643236&uac=389934HN&impID=6643236

Middle River, S. Fork Shenandoah tributary, about 12 miles from home. Goods Falls, S. Fork Shenandoah, about 50 miles from home. Gotta have Royalex or T-Formex for the shallow rocky rivers in this area. Sadly, the Mohawk Solo 14 in these photos was lost in a fire (sob!). For flat water...

A shot from starboard gives a clearer view of the clamping arrangement. The centerboard case is finally installed! Not shown is the boatbuilder underneath the boat, driving expensive large bronze screws while trying (mostly successfully) to avoid expensive dripping epoxy. Plenty of...