What got you into canoeing?

[dramey]

I grew up in Columbus Ohio. In the early 1960s, my parents rented a cabin on Tobermory, Ontario, Canada. At that time Tobermory was a wilderness with a dirt road for access. The cabin came with a boat dock and a row boat. I was either in 4th or 5th grade. My parents allowed me to go exploring around Tobermory in the row boat. This was that start of me liking wilderness and paddling a boat. I graduated high school at Worthington High School in 1969. Worthington High School’s western boundary was the Olentangy River and the school had a canoe livery. For 3 years, my gym class consisted of canoeing on the Olentangy River before ice up and after spring thaw. This is where I fell in love with canoeing. 4 years after graduation, I bought my first canoe. It was a Michicraft aluminum canoe with flush rivets and a shoe keel. I canoed in Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Texas, New Mexico and Alaska in that canoe. I went down rivers, went whitewater canoeing, canoed lakes, both big and small. I sold that canoe in 1991 and made the mistake of not replacing it. I bought my next canoe during covid. I now have 2 solo canoes and although I will not be canoeing the famous Canadian rivers, I will be enjoyinig canoe camping on lakes and various canoe trails.

 

[recped]

I don't have any personal memory but I can relate what I have been told.

I was born in late June 1954, 3 weeks later my parents loaded up their 1940's Dodge Fargo panel truck, my much older siblings jumped in while I was carried in a wicker basket. We headed off to ????, I don't know but probably to Ipperwash or Picton or Wasaga Beach. The 16' Peterborough canoe came off the truck roof, put in the water and I was deposited in the bottom. Apparently I slept through the entire event, I think that is why as I grew up I always felt comfortable in a canoe.

 

[Gamma1214]

Our Boy Scout troop had done some overnight trips on the local rivers but among my earliest jobs was the local Boy Scout summer camp where I worked as an aquatics instructor/lifeguard. I spent all summer teaching kids the finer points of boat control as I learned them/figured them out myself (as you might imagine, the level of instruction improved greatly as my tenure increased).

My attention turned toward backpacking and spelunking during college and I got out very little during the years that I was married & raising kids. As the nest began to empty, I found myself able to get out again and, one day while getting the oil changed in the work truck, I read an article about the BWCA.

In planning the trip, I joined this forum and the rest is history (as documented here). I wish I'd discovered wilderness canoe tripping 40 years ago (I missed my Troop's Algonquin trip due to work at the summer camp) but better late than never and I'll just have to make up for lost time.

 

[Neophyte]

My wife kept pestering me to get kayaks, which I did after we got a vehicle that could actually carry them. They were fine kayaks but rather boring to paddle, so we quickly outgrew them. I got my wife a nice kayak, and then discovered the world of solo canoes. I picked up a Northstar Trillium and got exactly one paddle in before I took it to the Adirondacks for a week long vacation. We stayed on a small house on a lake near Saranac Lake. My first paddle up there conditions were probably not ideal and I probably should not have been out on the water. (They cancelled the ADK 90 that day) But I had a blast and I've been hooked ever since.

Gamma I'm with you, wish I would have found this canoeing thing earlier, but glad I finally found it.

 

[Packrat]

When I retired at age 60 I started sea kayaking, I loved the experience. After about five years I decieded to buy a cheap canoe for duck hunting and it opened a new area of interest. Sold my sea kayak and ended up up with a Clipper Solitude whick I had until last Summer. Now I
am 89 and have a Clipper Packer which I intend to paddle until I can't paddle anymore!

 

[Neophyte]

Pack you are certainly making me feel better about starting canoeing at 44. I'm looking forward to 40+ more years of paddling.

 

[Erica]

When I retired at age 60 I started sea kayaking, I loved the experience. After about five years I decieded to buy a cheap canoe for duck huntinand it opened a new area of interest. Sold my sea kayak and ended up up with a Clipper Solitude whick I had until last Summer. Now I
am 89 and have a Clipper Packer which I intend to paddle until I can't paddle anymore!

Delighted to have you on board. Please keep posting. You are inspiration for me. By your example, I can look forward to almost 30 more years canoeing.

 

[stevet]

What got me into canoeing? When I realized it was easier to put the packs in the boat and go downhill than it was to put them on my back and go uphill.
But what kept me in it was that incomparable feeling of the interplay of paddler-paddle-boat-water that results in movement that can feel at once graceful, powerful, relaxing, and rewarding. There is nothing like it!

 

[billconner]

I started at 52 as an adult leader with my sons Scout troop who had a tradition of doing a BWCAW trip each August. Sounded like fun so I went and was hooked. 22 years later mostly solo.

 

[Bob B.]

I was a football coach and ran the weight room a life time ago. I injured my shoulder and really did not like the idea of surgery. I started rehabbing in the weight room and borrowed one of my ball players canoes for the summer. I practiced sit and switch paddling in a heavy Coleman tandem up the Wisconsin River against strong current. In about 4 weeks I noticed improvement in my shoulder. I began longer up river trips and would rest - swim at sandbars along the way. I noticed how beautiful and peaceful the river was ... especially on weekdays ( I was a teacher and had lots of time in the summer months when not running the weight room ). I was also a minimalist ... would grab my bed roll and ration bag of dry goods, water filter and hit the timber for 2-4 days. I began to think about using the canoe to explore the river with my minimalist kit. That lead to me returning the canoe to my ball player. Buying a used 17 foot Kevlar tandem canoe and would paddle ( flail actually ) to sandbars on day trips and overnighters. This activity really helped my shoulder, but more than that ignited a wonder lust for the quiet waterways a canoe could transport me to.

Funny to think that avoiding surgery and borrowing a clunky old canoe led me to decades of wilderness enjoyment and adventure.

 

[Robin]

When I was 7 in 1955 my family spent a week or so at a friends camp on Muskrat Lake in Cobden, Ontario. They had a canoe but I was stuck in a row boat with a 10’ rope tied to dock. I have this picture of my brothers and me in a 16’ Plycraft canoe. (I’m in the bow with a ash beavertail paddle of course).

I spent many summers at that camp, my first canoe camping experience was along the western shoreline of Muskrat Lake. We (a local farm boy and a kid from Ottawa) camped under a canvas lean too, eating fresh bread, blueberry jam beans and pike. I was hooked.
At 18 I returned once more before joining the army and off to Vietnam. My buddy from Ottawa and I had a shore lunch one last time. Still in that old Plycraft

 

[stripperguy]

I grew up hunting, fishing, paddling and camping in the ADK's with my father and uncles.
The hunting was OK, I was too young to carry but always enjoyed the woods.
Fishing was like a death march for me, but the paddling and camping were fantastic.
By the time I was 14, I was busy with work and school, and other interests took priority (motorcycles).
At age 19, a fellow apprentice suggested a week long ADK canoe trip, after the first day I rediscovered all that I loved about canoeing and wilderness camping.
Shortly after, I built my first stripper, and have been paddling my own boats and wilderness tripping ever since.

 

[RatAssassin]

I don't really know. I guess the saying, "It's in your blood" really applies to me. my Great-Grandfather was a very rich guy (before he went broke and died alone in a trailer in Fl) with some big connections and would go on adventures and safaris all over the world.
My Grandparents were huge canoe campers. I grew up very rurally and a canoe is just something we always had.
I really don't know much of anything else but outdoors stuff. There were no sports teams growing up. No kids to do it. Maybe 4 TV stations.
So hiking, camping, hunting and fishing it was in my family.....and still is.
While my brothers all eventually gravitated towards sports as they moved on and aged.
I'm still out doing my thing.
I don't even know how football is scored. I don't know whether to stay or run on a fly ball. I can't name maybe but 4 or five Basketball teams.
Maybe one day......but I'm still busy out doing my "outdoors thing". And I'm good with that.

 

[Dana]

For years, our family had a summer cabin at what was then the "Masonic Camp", a family group camp in NY's Harriman State Park. Most people had canoes there, there were racks for about 40 canoes on the beach. Mostly wooden boats but a few aluminum ones, too. Dad got a deal on two early fiberglass canoes that were excess to an order by another camp; he took one and a friend took the other. I was 3 or 4 at the time.

But I wasn't allowed in the canoe yet, only the more stable rowboats; according to the camp rules kids were only allowed in canoes, along with other privileges, after "swimming the flags". This involved an unassisted swim of 150 yards in deep water around the flags marking the perimeter of the swimming area, which I did when I was 5, which allowed me to use the diving board, swim out to the float, etc.... and go out in the canoes, though paddling solo was still restricted until age 14. Occasionally the under-14 kids were able to bring canoes into the marked swimming area, which wasn't generally allowed, and paddle solo and learn about tipping and righting canoes, moving without paddles by bobbing, play submarine, etc.

My parents or my older sisters and I would paddle all over the chain of three lakes, picking blueberries along the shoreline and wild grapes along a swampy tributary stream, landing on the islands, etc. Once I was 14 I would take the canoe and be gone all day, exploring the woods around the other lakes. 60 years later I still have a cabin in the camp, and the same old canoe.

Our granddaughter is getting an earlier start. Our daughter is the nurse at a YMCA camp at the other end of the chain of lakes. Her husband also works in the camp so they live there for the summer with their two kids. It's a sleepaway camp for older kids, but the affiliated day camp for younger kids is just across the lake, so our son in law paddles the older of the two girls (the other is still too young) across the lake each day instead of arriving by bus as the other kids do.

 

[ppine]

I grew up in Maryland and joined a Scout troop in 1960 at age 10. We were quickly doing overnight trips up the C&O Canal and down the Potomac River. We had 15 foot Grumman canoes that were all rented. We were in over our heads, but the water was warm and we didn't know any better. I remember paddling the Ausable River in Michigan at age 12 with my brother in a rented canoe. We were both convinced that our brothers didn't know how to paddle.

I took a canoeing class at church camp in Pennsylvania in junior high school. That helped a lot. The instructor was a hard arse jerk and I was the only one to pass the class and get a "certificate." Senior class canoe trip in 1968 after finishing high school, up the Canal and down the Potomac River with 58 people. A bunch of girls met us at the camp site.

Not much paddling until age 30 when I bought a wrapped Sawyer Cruiser. I became an avid canoeist after that. I took a party of 8 to the Boundary Waters in 1985, large groups on the Green River, UT, many rivers in CA, OR, AZ, and the Upper Missouri in Montana.

 

[Punkinhead]

My parents were very active in a canoe club from the time I was a baby so I pretty much grew up canoeing and kayaking. We camped with the canoe club nearly every weekend from Spring to Fall. My brother and I raced tandem canoes starting when I was probably 10 or 11 and my first whitewater was the lower Yough in a kayak when I was 12. I switched to an open canoe for WW when I was in my teens.

 

[dutchlennart]

Somekind of summercamp when i was 10. 2 years later my parents gave me a choice between another summercamp and a kids kayak second hand. I chose the kayak. Became a member of a paddling club. Paddled and owned many different canoes and kayaks the 40 years between then and now. Hope to continu for a couple of decades

 

[samb]

I never liked sport, participating or watching. I was in my schools football (soccer) team when I was 10 but that was probably just to make up the numbers as it was a small school, and I was also in the cricket team where I was last in the batting order and when fielding was always placed where no one would ever hit a ball towards. I remember having to get ready to bat once and I was petrified. Why would any sane person stand their ground while someone threw a hard ball at them. My preferred option was to move out of its way. Looking back, I think it might be the ‘organised activity' part of sports that put me off. I had no idea that ‘sport’ activity could be done for pleasure at your own pace and by yourself.

I don’t remember ever seeing a canoe or kayak until I was in my 20s. I had always like being outside, especially walking in the hills but as I got older, got married moved to the flattest part of the UK and had a family the walking in the hills just didn’t happen

On the evening before my 40th birthday, my wife teased me “ You are going to be middle aged tomorrow so you will soon be old and overweight: You need to take up a sport” There followed a conversation about my well known dislike of sport but she insisted there must be something I could do. After much thinking, I came up with kayaking.

The conversation continued and later that year, my son and I were enrolled on a beginners course at a local club. I disliked the organised part of the course, the having to reach certain standards and be judged on whether you were good enough or not, and I hated the weekly “now tip your kayak over and swim with it to the edge”. The bit I did enjoy was the bit after and between lessons where I could paddle at my own pace in my own little world where no one was telling me what to do.

After this first course I endured a couple more which gave me access to club trips to different parts of the country and while I didn’t especially enjoy paddling in a group I did learn a lot in a safe environment.

I have always loved making things and as I couldn’t afford to buy a decent kayak I made one. A 16 foot touring kayak suited to my local rivers (mostly canalised and slow - the Great Ouse was canalised in the 1200s to allow stone to be transported for the construction of Ely Cathedral).

I found someone like me who liked to paddle by themselves but preferred to have someone else nearby just in case. We did all the local rivers and moved on to the sea. My friend bought a sea kayak and I made one. All was well in the world! I must have been around 46 then.
One day, without knowing, I had not sealed my rear hatch properly. It was a windy day with a fair swell and I didn’t know that the rear compartment had water in. We landed at a slip way where there were kids fishing and playing. As I lifted the kayak, the wind blew my boat and swung me round. This propelled all the water to the end and in order not to kill a few kids I managed to control the swing. Disaster averted except that by the time I’d driven for an hour home I could hardly stand up. I was in agony for weeks. Sitting down hurt, driving was impossible, getting up from lying down needed help but walking was ok; I walked to work and stood up all day. I missed being on the water. As the weeks went by, I learnt that the most comfortable way to not stand was to kneel. I continued to miss being on the water when I realised that I’d seen people kneeling in canoes. I had to give that a try!

Since that very shaky beginning I have taught myself how to canoe. It wasn’t long before I made myself a canoe.

Over the years I’ve built about 6 more canoes. I’ve fallen in love with cedar/canvas and all wood canoes and now own 9 in total ranging from a 1913 Chestnut to a marine ply one sheet canoe. I also have two plastic boats for more rocky adventures as well as my sea kayak.

Sam

 

[BobMills]

I began canoeing around 1960. But it started before that. My Father worked for the Cleveland YMCA and, I think, around 1940 with WWII on the horizon and the Y expecting him to be going into the service he was given the job of finding a boys camp in Canada to start up. He looked at Georgian Bay and Temagami and found a camp in Temagami that fit the bill. After the war and he returned to the Y he would visit the camp, although he never ran it. Each summer when the boys would return from Temagami to Cleveland he would meet the buses and he always took me. Every year I'd ask him if I was old enough to attend.

Finally in 1960 when I was 13 he told me I could go. The first year I had no idea what it was all about but I was terribly excited to go. We took a Y bus to Temagami from Cleveland stopping at Niagara Falls to cross the border and then we spent the night camped in our bus in Huntsville, Ontario. We arrived in the village of Temagami parked the bus and took a large boat to the camp. When we arrived at the camp I found it was on three islands. Our cabin was on the smallest island and we paddled over to a larger island for the mess hall. After a day or two we left the base camp on our canoe trip. I hadn't reached puberty yet so I didn't have the strength of most of the boys. It was an eye opener to me. I thought what have I gotten myself into. We paddle into Sharp Rock Inlet and then portaged in to Diamond (Diamond's water levels was much higher than it is now). I not sure when we did the two miler from Diamond, but it just about killed me. Anyway, the trip was harded than I imagined. After a seven or eight day trip we paddled back to the base camp and the next day a quite large boat took us back to the village of Temagami. On the trip back I was thinking to myself something like this "this was actually fun and I want to come back next year".

I did return the next year. I had matured and I found a much longer trip just great. I got into sports in high school which prevent any trips then and then college and I had to work summers to afford it. Next, I got married and had a family and again I didn't seem to find the time. Finally in 2010 I convinced my three sons and my bother to go to Temagami on a trip and it was wonderful in every respect. I haven't gone on any trips of any duration since covid and last year my dear wife died so canoeing again has taken a backseat to life. I'm hoping to at least go on short trips, here in Maine and maybe a trip by myself (my sons have families and work responsiblities now) to Temagami for a trip to just remember, maybe just on Temagami itself.

Canoe paddling has filled my dreams since I was a kid and I still have them.

 

[scoutergriz]

unlike most here, I was almost born into a canoe, My mom was a nurse for a place that allowed staffers to take an up to 90 day leave every summer (they ran a teaching cohort for a nearby nurses' college for the summer semester), and my dad worked at a place that started hitting 140F (60c) by june and had to shut down from june to september.
This allowed both parents to take the whole summer off, so my dad took a job as a summer ranger for the Ontario Dept. of Lands and Forests. At that time they allowed families to backcountry trip with the employees. Labour Day weekend my parents were car camped after a 2 week patrol (my older brothers were at the park summer canoe camp), and with one thing leading to another, I was born 9 months later- 3 days after my parents returned from the first Victoria Day patrol of the year (yes my mom was still tripping at 9 months pregnant) and my first trip was about 6 weeks later. T
his went on annually until the dept. was folded into another provincial ministry, most part time rangers were let go, and families were no longer allowed, My mom changed jobs and became head nurse, and had to work summers, so my dad took over as the head ranger for the local scout camp where he ran a paddling program. this continued until I was in my late teens and got my driver's licence, that's when I could finally do solo or group trips without their supervision- when I met my wife our first overnight date was a 4 day canoe trip...
Fast forward about 10 years and a parent that I knew asked me if I'd consider helping her son's new scout-leader with his first winter camp because of my knowledge (I'd also been a 4 season camper since birth), the camp went off without a hitch and I was asked to stick around. By summer I re-instituted the canoeing program and eventually wrote the guide for scouts that got adopted province-wide, I also ended up as a Adult mentor and outdoor skills instructor for my region, ran the canoeing program for the next 1/4 century, and would probably still be doing it if I hadn't broken my back and had to give it up.
I still trip, but now I require a sherpa because of my physical limitations...