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Poll: How old were you when you got YOUR OWN first canoe (and what was it)?

Poll: How old were you when you got YOUR OWN first canoe (and what was it)?

  • Under 20

    Votes: 19 20.7%
  • 20's

    Votes: 31 33.7%
  • 30's

    Votes: 20 21.7%
  • 40's

    Votes: 12 13.0%
  • 50's

    Votes: 7 7.6%
  • 60's

    Votes: 3 3.3%
  • 70's

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 80's

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    92
We started going up to Bar Harbor in the mid 90’s on vacation and would go out with a guide on the ocean in sea kayaks. We would occasionally stop in and check out the Hornbeck canoes on our way up to hike in the Adirondacks. Then in 2010 i was doing research on pack boats and read about Joe Moore building the Placid boat Spitfires, stopped in late September liked his boats and bought 2 new Spitfires. Great canoes.
 
I was in my early mid-30s. Got an Old Town Camper. Love that canoe.

On our maiden voyage, my then 4 year old son and I saw a bald eagle, a painted turtle smaller than a dime, and a water snake that fascinated him the most. If that canoe could only talk... it saw my children grow up. It has taken me through the Okefenokee and as far south as Whitewater Bay in the Everglades to as far north as Rock River on the VT-QE border. An alligator has jumped over it and I have slept under it. Four family dogs have enjoyed it. My grandson took his first paddle in it.

I still have it and hopefully will for some time yet.


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When I retired at 64 I started doing easy to moderate hiking trails around Lake George area in the southern Adirondacks. When it started getting hot on those July day hikes I decided it was time to get out on the water. Started looking at kayaks and someone told me about ultra light kevlar canoes being made by Peter Hornbeck in Olmsteadville. You mean I can get a boat that I can carry up to the ponds? I hadn't been in a canoe since the family Grumman decades ago, so the price of a kevlar pack canoe seemed crazy. Eventually stumbled on a well used 16lb Slipstream kevlar "Wee Lassie". My first canoe and pretty much the end of my hiking career except for snowshoeing.
 
I have been paddling canoes for longer than I can remember but didn't purchase one until my early 20s. My wife and I bought an Old Town Molitor as a present for each other on our first anniversary. We still have it today. I have picked up a few more canoes since then including an early Molitor as described at https://www.wcha.org/forums/index.php?threads/12325/ in more detail.

Benson



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I have been paddling canoes for longer than I can remember but didn't purchase one until my early 20s. My wife and I bought an Old Town Molitor as a present for each other on our first anniversary. We still have it today. I have picked up a few more canoes since then.

Benson



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It must have been tough for a Maine boy to find canoes to paddle when his family founded and owned the Old Town Canoe Company. I note that you also bought matching color Old Town life jackets, as I still have that exact one, which used to fit me 50 years and 50 pounds ago. I was always in love with the Molitor and will someday tell the story of how I drove to Lake Tahoe to try to buy one from Johnny Carson (unsuccessfully).
 
Yes, actually paying for a canoe and then owning it was a whole new concept for me since the company was sold in 1974. I even got my name on a build record as shown below. We still have the life jackets too. Your story about a road trip to buy a Molitor sounds like it could be great, even if you weren't successful.

Benson



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Yes, actually paying for a canoe and then owning it was a whole new concept for me since the company was sold in 1974. I even got my name on a build record as shown below. We still have the life jackets too. Your story about a road trip to buy a Molitor sounds like it could be great, even if you weren't successful.

Benson



View attachment 133919

93 lbs.! I look forward to watching you single carry it. Does it have thwarts? And, just curious, what do FLSB, OSS and oak leaf design mean on the receipt?
 
This isn't an easy canoe to move alone and I have heavier ones. The catalog weight of the canoe shown in my avatar is 110 pounds and an older sailing canoe with a 16 pound bronze centerboard is only slightly less. I'm a big fan of low trailers and bicycle wheel carts for moving them around.

This version of the Molitor was made with wide outside gunwales and no thwarts. It's based on the 'courting canoes' of the early 1900s where thwarts were a hinderance. The acronyms are for the full length stem band and outside stems. The oak leaf design came from the original design number 45 as shown below. See http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/designs/thumbnal.html and https://www.woodencanoe.org/product-page/old-town-canoe-company-color-design-poster for the full set of Old Town design options.

Benson


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An embarrassment of riches illustrated by a quick story.

I knocked on the door, when it opened I said, “Are you Joe?”
“Yeah.”
“I have one of your canoes and was hoping could get a stem band from …”
He narrrowed his eyes, scowled, and interrupted with, “I don’t remember selling you a canoe!”
“Umm, no, I bought it from the Scout Base.”
“Ohhh, well come on in. How are things out on Moose Lake?”

Joe really remembered everyone who had ever bought a canoe from him? Amazing.*

My well-used Seliga cost me $175 in 1981 when I was 20 years old.

*At my age, he wouldn’t have had to remember too far back. But he demonstrated a remarkable memory many times over the years I knew him.
 
An embarrassment of riches illustrated by a quick story.

Clrose, welcome (finally) to first post site membership! Feel free to ask any questions and to post messages, photos and videos in our many forums. Please read Welcome to CanoeTripping and Site Rules! Also, please consider adding your location to your profile, which will cause it to show under your avatar, as this is in many ways a geographic sport. We look forward to your participation in our canoe community.

Do you still have that Seliga?
 
I do have the Seliga. Prefer paddling my kevlar version now.

Prefer lifting the Kevlar one, too, I imagine. @lowangle al just got a composite Bell Seliga, as you may know if you've been lurking. I've never seen any Seliga in person. Maybe I will at the WCHA Assembly this summer. I'd love to take one for a spin.
 
Hi Chuck, welcome and congrats on owning an original Seliga. Is your w/c boat the same 17' model as your kevlar boat, which I assume is a Bell or Northstar? I was curious to know how close in shape the two hulls are. Also, did the original have a keel?
Both are the same, except for the keel on the original. My kevlar is a Northstar and was bought used from an outfitter in 2020. Jumping back and forth between the two and paddling in a bit of wind, I felt negligible difference (maybe the w/c stayed on the top of a wave when angled s bit better because of the keel). Older photos attached from when the Bell model first came out ('04 or '05). Plus a few just for fun.

If you own a Seliga you should get the book, there are lots of used copies around:

And this one is more of a children's book:
 

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Prefer lifting the Kevlar one, too, I imagine. @lowangle al just got a composite Bell Seliga, as you may know if you've been lurking. I've never seen any Seliga in person. Maybe I will at the WCHA Assembly this summer. I'd love to take one for a spin.
Was at the WCHA Assembly in 2022 (and 2017). Didn't bring the Seliga (gas prices). Might make it again in 2023, might bring the Seliga. Would be happy to let you paddle it.
 
I dabbled in kayaks between the ages of 17 and 19. I had little money, and could only afford a well used and significantly damaged fiberglass slalom race kayak. That summer, I learned a lot about fiberglass and how (not) to repair it. My passion was longer trips which my kayak was not good at, so it wasn't a natural fit. The cockpit was also quite small for me, and I nearly drowned in the darn think when I got turned upside down on a shallow river. I had lost my paddle, and I had a really hard time wet exiting. Then a friend heard from a friend that yet another guy was selling a canoe. It was the ugliest (someone was turned lose on it with some spray cans), and heaviest canoe I had ever laid eyes on, but it was cheap and was going to be mine!
I don't remember the brand, but it was on the order of 16' long, at least 3' wide, and the seats were milk crates. It was made of fiberglass, and it weight around 90 pounds. In spite of all its flaws, I loved paddling it, and I was hooked on canoeing for ever. I don't think I could car-top that sucker anymore...I also don't have to as my current canoes are much better quality. I don't miss the physical labor it took to go paddling. However, I off and on still think about that canoe and the good times my then girlfriend (now wife) and I had with it.
 
I was 65 when I bought and paddled my first canoe ever. 77 now. It was an Old Town Pack. The only good thing I have to say about the Pack is that it was light. It was light because it was under built.
 
Lowangle Al,
What I paddle now depends on the trip. I've got a Wenonah Prism in Carbon for day paddling on
local lakes to keep up with the Sea Kayaks in the group and for my Boundary Waters Trips.
Wenonah Argosy for River Trips. I actually have 2 Argosys, a Royalex that I bought new about 10-11
years ago for rough rocky rivers and a Kevlar Argosy for less obstructed rivers.
I paddled the Kevlar Argosy on a 10 day BW Trip in 2021 and it was fine.
Larry
The Royalex Argosy is the boat I moved to from the OT Pack and never looked back.
 
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