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Collector or connoisseur

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After watching an interview the other day of a fairly prolific paddler talking about his favourite spots to paddle, where he touched on the subject of favourite rivers to paddle and the number of times they had been down these routes, it got me thinking about my tripping preferences and what lies ahead this coming summer with the possibility of limited travel and in the coming years with a growing family.

To answer my own question, I am definitely a collector of canoe routes. The process of exploring new places, from route planning and mapping to the thrill of heading into the unknown while watching maps evolve into reality is the greatest dopamine I am willing to experiment with. For the most part, the trips aren’t rushed, fishing and photography regulate the pace, and most of what is available is consumed. We’ve found the dooziest of fishing holes and spectacular vistas, but we never go back. That next spot is just too enticing and having a glut of Canadian wilderness at our fingertips makes it all too easy.

My first world conundrum; enter kids. There are definitely spots I want my kids to experience beyond the photo albums, but returning to these places goes against my selfish collector mentality. It doesn’t seem right to not show them some of these spots, but as I said, I’m selfish and just around that next unknown corner....

I will probably relent some day and will find myself on familiar waters. Its extremely enjoyable when you see new experiences through young, fresh eyes, and perhaps knowing what’s up ahead will increase their anticipation and excitement.

thinking out loud on a cold winter day.
cheers.
 
In my hay day I preferred finding new rivers to run after the last one. I personally don't like re-running a river but some are just so nice...humm...guess I'll go back for one last run. Like you thinking out loud on a cold winter night maybe taking your kids to a river you know could be a good thing and then go from there. Just food for thought!
 
I would advise indulging your love of new places while taking the kids along and telling them of the places before. With any luck, one of two things will happen... either they'll bug you to see them with you or they will remember you fondly as they visit them on their own after they fly from the nest. Either way seems like a "win" to me.

In the event that your original post was a "which are you?" question... I am fairly new to canoe tripping but I've done both backpacking... Solo trips are full-out collector but I've really enjoyed being the tour guide who shared some awesome places with the kids.
 
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I used to be a collector but in old age I know time is limited and now would prefer to revisit "old friend canoe routes". I know the ones that I can still manage and get pleasure out of. One thing you might consider is if you have pix of your old trips and can revisit with your kids and take pics it will make some neat family memories for future days when all you might be able to do is reminisce.
Yah I know there is a risk of "When I was your age I traveled this river upstream carrying a bear!"
 
I enjoy returning to familiar places. Often times my first trip feels like a reconnaissance trip and I get more enjoyment from successive journey(s) as I get to know a place better. Returning to individual spots I've already enjoyed (and skipping ones I didn't) as well as continually finding new things I'd missed the first time through. It's also fun to add little side trips or slight route variations. This doesn't just apply to canoe tripping but travel in general. I like new things but I also like the comfort and lack of trying to pack everything in at once.

I've been known to paddle for 2-3 weeks and then turn around and retrace my route back to the put-in. To some people this seems ridiculous but I'm just happy being in the canoe and am often shocked at how unfamiliar territory can look that I just passed through a week or two earlier. It's not only from forgetfulness but also from the change of perspective, different weather, different times of day, and simply because you can't be paying attention to everything all the time.

I think taking young kids would be a perfect excuse to go so someplace familiar where you know what to expect. Any trip will be a big exploration for them and for you the joy will come from watching them experience it rather than experiencing it yourself.

One of my pipe dreams is, after another trip to gain more familiarity with a remote route I've already done, would be to then travel that route with no maps, just relying on my memory and knowledge of the route. There is so much to see along those routes that I could probably be happy paddling that route with some deviations and side trips for years and keep finding new things.

I hear people who have traveled to Italy, for example, and all but refuse to travel there again because they feel like they have to go someplace new. But how can you spend a week in Italy and claim to have even scratched the surface? You can't know a country or its people in that amount of time. Personally I'd rather get to really know a handful of places rather than skim over many.

Alan
 
For what it's worth, there's something to be said for developing "old friends" when it comes to paddling routes in my opinion. As I get older, it's nice to experience these places during different seasons and various weather patterns while discovering all each place has to offer. Some of this thought may have to do with the advancement of age but I do still enjoy discovering/exploring new places. When you find those hidden gems off of the routes you enjoy, its the best of both worlds.

All that being said, do what works best for you; and your family. In time you'll probably do something different but that will be OK as well. As long as you're out there paddling, exploring and sharing it with those you love, there'll only be good times ahead.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time...be well.

snapper
 
Although I try to paddle and camp new places when I have the opportunity I have always been somewhat the opposite.

Some of that is due to where I live; the mid-Atlantic region isn’t exactly festooned with tripping opportunities, and I have tripped or day paddled dang near everything personally desirable within a couple hundred mile radius, much of it multiple times.

New places are still enticing, but if I am travelling 8 or 10 or 30 hours to a new-to-me paddling venue it better be worth the effort. There have been a few well researched but still disappointing places, most luckily as one stop on a longer road trip, that were just “Meh, that was ok I guess. Never need to come back here”.

But even in the old familiar places it is never the same river (or marsh, swamp, lake or coastal bay) twice.

I never feel as if I’m in the same theatre, sitting through the same movie again, knowing exactly what is ahead; different campsites, with different companions vs solo, different water levels or different seasons make enough difference for me.

Mid-summer, swimming in the lake and seeking a breezy promontory site to lessen the bugs, vs off-season in a sheltered hollow, bundled up in layers and nestled around a warming fire is not the same trip. The same place in a different season doesn’t seem as much like the same place.

Greater familiarity allows me awareness of those changes. Not just the seasonal changes, but high water/low water, pre and post hurricane or nor’easter on coastal trips, or river changes after a significant flood. If I hadn’t seen the before I wouldn’t appreciate the differences after.

Those changes are, to me, especially intriguing; enough so that on some familiar coastal trips I will day paddle away from camp, find a scenic view bayside beach and spend hours bird watching and wandering the shoreline, noticing the tide come in or go out. Cool beans, a radically altered landscape in a few hours time. A journal, some beer and weed, and a comfy chair helps dawdle the hours away.

There are places I have tripped multiple times that I still look forward to paddling again, and taking my sons to places I knew and loved and seeing it through their eyes made it special all over again. And of course every place was new to them, and new to me with them along.

Admittedly when they were very young I was cautious/selective about where (and when) we tripped, not just for potential hazards/safety concerns, but also because I wanted them to enjoy both the paddling effort getting there and the camping experience being there; I wasn’t taking them to the northcountry at the height of blackfly season and expecting that early experience to imbue them with a love of tripping.

That stuff could wait ‘til they had some enjoyable miles under their PFDs.

EK_0001 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

One peculiar caveat about tripping with kids; we would return from a couple week trip with - boys will be boys – our sons thoroughly scratched, scraped, bruised, bug bit and bandaged. I half expected Child Protective Services to knock on my door one evening, but fortunately their teachers knew how we spent our family vacations.

In short, new place or familiar place, getting them out there is the important part; we need a next generation of trippers far more than we need a next generation of Fortnite champions.

Concluding with my favorite Peter A. Jay quote:

Spend as much time as possible
on mountains, in small boats, or otherwise out in the weather.
If you never get cold, wet, exhausted or scared
you won’t properly appreciate
being warm, dry, rested and safe.
 
I'm not a mountain climber, but they sometimes use the term "peak bagging" to refer to the compulsion to climb a new mountain even though it may be no better or interesting, and possibly less so, than the previous 30 climbed.

I used to have that mindset for the first five years or so of my whitewater career -- wanting to bag new personal first descents -- but the availability of river water was limited and often dependent upon dam releases and driving distances. So, inevitably, I would run the same rivers more than once. I found that I developed distinct favorites and would later lead annual trips on many of them.

As a flat water canoeist, one is also highly dependent on the availability of lakes and smoothwater rivers. There aren't many places with the abundance of waters like Ontario, Minnesota, Maine, New York and Florida. So, over 60+ years paddling in those places, I have developed some very definite "all time favorites", to which I would return endlessly if I only had the time, money and health. For example, the Sparkleberry Swamp in South Carolina, the rivers and spring runs of central Florida, the New Jersey Pine Barrens, Georgian Bay in Ontario, and the Dead River and North Pond in Maine.

I never had a "collector" mentality as an ocean paddler in my sea kayaks or Hawaiian outrigger because, other than some interesting shoreline differences, the ocean both bored and intimidated me.

Most importantly, I became experienced enough, good enough and self-aware enough to realize that my favorite thing about paddling was the act of paddling itself -- the physical, mental and spiritual joy of controlling an elegant craft in most any kind of water. And my highest joys and joyfullest highs come from single blading an open canoe.

So . . . I have sort of arrived at a mindset that water is water, no matter where it is, and I can enjoy the sensual act of paddling . . . the samewhere or otherwhere or anywhere.
 
When my twin boys became of age, (7 years old, 1982) for our first trip without Mom or their younger sister, I took them to a small familiar lake in NY ADKs. At this time I was in the early stages of my solo trips to Canada, but I was happy to return to a previously visited lake that I knew would be an ideal location to introduce them to back country camping.
There was a small campsite I knew of, tucked away in a little shallow bay that offered enough privacy to give them the feeling of being remote yet an easy paddle back to the truck. The fishing was great, not walleyes or tough fighting pike like I found in Ontario, but sunny's, perch and small bass that young boys love to catch. We brought their new BB guns and they learned to pump Dad's empty beer cans full of holes. We took a hike and met a young man who was hunting bear with his Grandfathers octagon barreled lever action rifle. We read the graffiti on the walls of a lento and added a story of our own. They each learned to build their own campfire on that trip.
The next year I took their younger sister to the same place and repeated the same events.
I felt the emphasis should be on them enjoying an easy fun filled trip versus fitting them into an adult trip.
 
I'm a believer in the saying that "you never paddle the same river twice". I think it's kind of amazing how you can paddle "the same" stretch of river many times but still get a unique experience and unique memories every time. I might even venture that it's not possible to paddle the same place twice. Everything is different every time...the light, the wind, the water, the wildlife. I very much enjoy exploring new places too; I love seeing what's around the next bend. I also love paddling in good places that I've paddled many times before. I think it can be infinitely rewarding to slow down and try to fully appreciate the spot you're in at the moment.
 
I'm a believer in the saying that "you never paddle the same river twice".

Yep, The missus and I went to bed on a sandy beach of the Colorado. Next morning, before coffee, and not yet realizing that the river could be controlled, it took awhile to figure out why the canoe was not close to the waters edge where I left it. It was in fact a different river. The shoreline, the current, the exposed rocks, all different now. Only the towering red rock cliffs looked the same. You see, 10 miles upstream, in the middle of the night, and engineer at Glen Canyon Dam had pushed a button and lowered the river by 4 feet.
 
Glenn M...

There aren't many places with the abundance of waters like Ontario, Minnesota, Maine, New York and Florida...

OK, time to kill some time... after some very interesting googling, the entire world holds about 1,420,000 lakes over 10 hectares in size (about 25 acres). Canada holds 880,400 or 62%... be sure to see 'em all.

Lake distribution map, this is where to go if you want lakes... the dark blue areas are where lakes cover 3-10% of the land area or greater. Algonquin park, for example, has about 10% of surface area covered by water.

(...opening the map in a new window will show a larger version)

There still are unvisited lakes on top maps which look interesting for some mystery, but any canoeing this spring will probably be to something familiar.

worldwide-lakes-map.jpg - Click image for larger version  Name:	worldwide-lakes-map.jpg Views:	0 Size:	197.1 KB ID:	121845
 
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