Sooner or later, everybody who owns a canoe scans the boat in the rosy light of evening and wonders what adventures it has been on and what future odysseys are in store. A trip upstream to the source of the local river? A trip across the country? In a nation of rivers like Canada, it’s easy to think that with the right boat, the proper gear, enough food and dollop of daring and ingenuity, epic journeys are possible for any- one willing to take a risk.

And then there’s John Smith of Peterborough.

It was the spring of 1934. Smith, 34, had spent the previous five years being a whaler and merchant mariner. But he had returned home to realize a dream that had been brewing in his fertile mind since his early adult years working for the Peterborough Canoe Company. The dream was simple. He would paddle a 16-foot cedar-canvas canoe, called “Pride of Peterborough,” from Peterborough, Ontario, to Peterborough, England—solo across the Atlantic.

Really. He would load the boat with 500 pounds of fresh water and hard tack, sew a canvas cover to keep waves at bay. All in, he would leave the George Street wharf on the Otonabee River in June and, in two to three months, would be relaying personal greetings to family and friends in Ireland. Then onward across the Irish Sea to Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, on the River Nene.

And that’s exactly what he set out to do. The reporter who broke the story in the Peterborough Examiner was initially skeptical. But Smith’s shy demeanour and earnest determination convinced him otherwise. “Yes sir, Smith is serious,” he wrote. “For the past eight months… he has been analyzing carefully the various problems involved. And right now he is busy seeking a canoe of the proper type and arranging for the food rations and equipment he will carry with him.”

Smith… well… didn’t make it. He’s buried in an unmarked grave near Stephenville, Newfoundland. He made his way safely to the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula and, from there, struck out into the open waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence to make the 435-kilometre crossing to Newfoundland.

His journal, which turned up as beach flotsam in a waterproofed tin can, detailed that partway over he stopped aboard a freighter whose captain gave him a hot meal, a mariner’s rubber safety suit and a map and sent him on his way again. Somewhere between there and Newfoundland, Smith came a cropper.

His body washed up in one place, his surf-bashed canoe in another, the tin can containing his journal in another; all pieces of Smith’s impossible dream.

It was on those beaches that Smith’s story would have faded into obscurity had it not been for two Peterborough artists who have kept the tale alive.

Singer and songwriter Glen Caradus premiered a splendid new ballad about John Smith at a concert at The Canadian Canoe Museum earlier this year. When asked, he allowed that he was inspired to write the song by an art installation created by Mount Pleasant, Ontario, artist JoEllen Brydon.

In the early 1990s, Brydon was pulling up flooring in her 19th-century farmhouse and came upon old newspapers that included a June, 1934 edition of the Peterborough Examiner. So captivated was she by Smith’s story that she created a whole art installation around the tale—18 paintings installed on a wall behind a 1930s-style diner counter where visitors can sit on padded chrome stools and read reprints of the Smith story as it appeared back in the day. This work is now in the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa.

Not only do we need John Smiths for inspiration, we also need artists like Caradus and Brydon to keep their stories alive. The stories they tell remind us that epic journeys of discovery, whatever the vehicle, whatever the goal, begin far closer to home than most of us ever imagine.

All it takes is a dream.

James Raffan is the executive director of the Canadian Canoe Museum.

This article appeared in Canoeroots & Family Camping, Summer/Fall 2009.

Okay, it’s not War and Peace, or even an early edition of How to Shit in the Woods, but it’s noteworthy when a little-known volume called The Rob Roy on the Baltic by John MacGregor, first published in 1866, is being re-published in 2009.

MacGregor revolutionized waterborne travel in Europe by turning around to face forward in what was essentially a rowing scull. Instead of rowing with oars he opted to alternate dips with a double-bladed paddle. His dream was to tour the Baltic and also paddle through Europe passing out religious tracts (but that’s another story) on water- ways possibly too small for a conventional rowboat. About the decision to “canoe” in- stead of row across Europe, he wrote:

“It was clear no rowboat would serve on a voyage of this sort, for in the wildest parts of the best rivers the channel is too narrow for oars, or, if wide enough, it is often too shallow; and the tortuous passages…that constantly occur on a river winding among hills, make those very parts where the scenery is wildest and best to be quite unapproachable in such a boat, for it would be swamped by the sharp waves, or upset over the sunk- en rocks, which cannot be seen by a steersman [facing the stern].”

MacGregor named his 15-foot decked canoe for his famous ancestor Rob Roy and when he returned from his odyssey in 1865 he wrote the best-selling A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe. In it, he celebrated paddling just for the sake of paddling, which was then a novel idea. Building on the book’s success, he founded the Royal Canoe Club and the idea crossed the Atlantic.

And so began the sport of recreational canoeing, say some. Recreational canoeing in Canada inspired by a Brit? Maybe, in part. For more on the story we need to look into an exhibit at The Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterbrough, Ontario.

Its name is Harmony and it’s a lightweight decked canoe very similar to MacGregor’s. One might assume Harmony is derivative of Rob Roy, after all, the two were built only 10 kilometres from each other. But that gets turned upside down by research which suggests that Harmony was built before John MacGregor cooked up his design and paddled off to become famous.

In piecing the story together it seems that Dr. George Mellis Douglas purchased Harmony when passing through London and had the craft shipped home for his son Campbell. According to Douglas, writing in Forest and Stream in 1886:

“This canoe was built [before] Mr. MacGregor brought canoeing into notice by the publication of his well known cruise in the Rob Roy… On the eve of my departure for India in 1865, I had her sent out to Quebec… Last year I remembered my old canoe and had her sent to me at Lakefield, where she was renovated and again put in com- mission this spring. The Harmony is a paddling canoe, pur et simple [sic].” In the fullness of time, the son Campbell had a son—another George Mellis Douglas—who was one of the first Barren Land explorers to extensively photograph the Northwest Territories in the early 20th century. He lived out his days paddling Harmony, much in the spirit of MacGregor, on Lake Katchewanooka, not far from Harmony’s current home in the museum.

Was there a relationship between George Mellis Douglas, the elder, and John MacGregor? Did MacGregor model his boat after Harmony? Is Harmony the canoe that started it all? Questions. Lots of questions. A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe (readable at www.ibiblio.org) or Rob Roy on the Baltic (re-released by Dixon-Price) are excellent places to start looking for answers

This article appeared in Canoeroots & Family Camping, Late Summer 2011.

This editorial originally appeared in Canoeroots and Family Camping magazine.

The butterflies began to twirl in my stomach the moment I stepped off the train in Inverness with my wife, Alana, and six-year-old daughter, Kyla. Everyone around us was wearing knee-high, green rubber gumboots. We were dressed in low, leather hikers—typical gear for a summer canoe trip in our neck of the woods. But not for the northwest tip of Scotland.

It didn’t help my confidence when our outfitter, Russell, picked us out of the crowd the moment he arrived. Looking down at our feet, he smirked and said, “You must be the Canadian paddlers.”

The uneasy feeling heightened as we dodged sheep and free-ranging cattle on the road to our put-in at Loch Buine Moire. The landscape stretched out in front of us—a shoreline of peat bogs, heather moorland, low-lying pockets of birch and, in the backdrop, the five stunted mountaintops that make up the Torridonian sandstone peaks.

Of course, we could see little of the scenery through the rain that met us at the put-in. We pulled off our leather hikers and replaced them with the gumboots supplied by Russell. Then he sketched a makeshift manual on how to erect the new tunnel tent he had packed for us, quickly described the art of lighting a Kelly Kettle with one match and a bundle of wet heather, pointed us in the right direction and sent us on our way. It was baptism-by-fire. It gave me the jitters.

After a lifetime of canoe tripping in Northern Ontario, I love the feeling of knowing how to make myself comfortable and safe out there. But into the cold rain we went, a clan of paddlers from across the Atlantic heading into the unfamiliar wilds of northern Scotland.

Once over the portage, I did what any canoeist with experience tripping during a rainstorm would do—I looked for a clump of trees to put up a tarp and light a warm fire. The problem was, clumps of trees are rare in northern Scotland and when found, they’re likely to be in the soggiest spot around. We resorted to a bog where the standing water was only ankle deep.

Two rock mounds gave us some protection against the numbing wind and amazingly enough, I was able to light the Kelly Kettle with a single match and a bundle of wet heather. I had underestimated the tunnel tent, an amazing piece of gear that was well matched to the elements surrounding us. It formed a self-supported shelter with add-on sleeping quarters. It protected us from the rain and wind and even allowed us to cook up our first meal—bangers and mash of course. We couldn’t possibly imagine cooking in our shelter on trips back home, ever wary of hungry black bears wandering the woods. Scotland’s most dangerous land mammal is the feral goat.

Once the rain stopped, we crawled out of the tunnel tent to soak in the scenery around us. We gawked as rising mist cleared from the surrounding mountains and unveiled the stunning landscape. Kyla, with her hot chocolate, and Alana and I, with a wee dram of single malt, had found comfort in our newfound, unfamiliar canoe country.

Kevin Callan may have been out of his element, but he’s no blethering skite. Despite being scunnered by midges, he fell in love with the green hills and purple heather of his mother’s land.

This article appeared in Canoeroots & Family Camping, Spring 2012.

So this is what adventure looks like.

A storm raged overhead as I sheltered under my overturned canoe on the shore of the Yukon’s Lake Laberge. Watching lightning stab down at the surrounding hills in the gloom, I shivered.

Only three days into a five-week solo canoe trip down the Yukon River and I was already at the mercy of the elements, gusts of wind sending sheets of rain to pound against the hull. Against the howling wind, I clung to the gunwales of my only means of return to civilization.

I’m not the first to have come to the Yukon River for a taste of adventure. In 1898, news of a massive gold strike in the Klondike Valley swept the world and some 30,000 men raced to Canada’s Yukon Territory. Doctors called the fever “klondicitis.” After hiking heavy packs over the dangerous Chilkoot and White Pass to the headwaters of the Yukon River, prospectors built rafts and boats to float, pole and paddle their way to collect certain fortune. Gold lay thick in the creek beds, it was said. For most, the dream proved elusive. 

Hearing the story as a boy, klondicitis hit me hard. I never shook off its romantic beckoning. Each summer I escaped my government job in the nation’s capital to paddle remote areas, but still the Klondike haunted me. And that’s how I found myself lying under my canoe, waiting for the storm to pass.

Warnings

My river journey began in Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon, with warnings. In full flood, the Yukon River was carrying up to 40 percent more water volume than past years. Entire trees were caught up in the floodwaters, making for dangerous paddling companions. Often considered one of the more accessible northern rivers because it’s reachable by road and has few rapids, the Yukon River during the summer of 2012 was a whole different beast. 

My heavily-laden 17-foot Nova Craft set off into strong current from a quiet eddy in town. My goal was to trace the gold rush to the Klondike Valley, then paddle to the Arctic Circle, 1,300 kilometers away. Paddling away from Whitehorse, almost immediately I was immersed in wilderness. That first night I set up my tent within sight of rotting paddlewheeler wharf pilings on the “marge of Lake Laberge,” a place made famous by Robert Service’s 1907 poem The Cremation of Sam McGee. 

Lake Laberge is a widening of the river north of Whitehorse, 54 kilometres long and a dangerous and unpredictable lake for any canoeist. More than a few Klondike paddlewheelers, a popular means for traveling the river in the 19th century, rest on the bottom, victims of sudden storms, high winds and waves, which can whip up in minutes. 

Chased all morning and afternoon by a storm, I was caught 30 kilometers down the lake. Already pitching and rolling when a grey wave swept over my stern, I headed for the nearby shore. And that’s where I stayed, sheltered under my canoe and then huddled in my tent, for two wet days. 

Released from the clutches of the storm, I had my sights set on a ghost town at the northern reach of Lake Laberge. Eight hours of hard paddling found me, exhausted, setting up my tent beside a lonesome paddlewheeler, its ribs protruding from the gravel like a prehistoric skeleton. Close by, the remains of a telegraph station slowly composted into history. Klondike miners didn’t go north as pioneers to settle the land. Interested only in striking it rich, most left within a year of their arrival, pushed south by the hard winter and disillusioned with the promise of gold. Their log cabins illustrate the hard lives they led: dirt floors, windows improvised from whiskey bottles or tanned moose hides and a solitary stove to keep the cold at bay. Most of these ghost towns have disappeared into the black spruce forests, but their bones are still there for those who look.

Exploring

Hootalinqua, where the Yukon meets the Teslin River, is a beautiful ghost town. Its name means “running against the mountains” in reference to the fast and narrow section I’d just paddled. A North-West Mounted Police post, telegraph station, solitary trapper’s cabin and log store are all that remain. A narrow path, guarded only by swarms of mosquitoes, leads through the forest to a rocky lookout. Nearby, the paddlewheeler Evelyn still stands upright—though tilting—on supports where dockside workers abandoned her 100 years ago. Deep in the wilderness, ravens and hummingbirds perch on her sagging bow and stern.

Constant vigilance is a necessity for any wilderness paddler. From its headwaters in British Columbia, the Yukon River carves a circuitous 3,100-kilometer path through the wilderness to the Bering Sea, making it the 10th longest river in the world. Moose, caribou, wolverine, bear and eagles are often more common than people along its banks. With a year-round frigid water temperature, hypothermia is a serious concern. Rapids, whirlpools and sweepers pose navigational challenges. In its flood conditions, logjams forced furious paddling to find a clear and safe path and submerged logs were a constant danger; getting rammed by one would certainly have capsized me.

The challenges of Canada’s north attract adventurers from around the world. More than 300,000 people visit the Yukon each year, says tourism spokesperson Jim Kemshead. One in five of those are adventure enthusiasts. “The Yukon has a landmass the same size as California but whereas California has a population of 38 million, the Yukon is populated with 36,000 people. This makes for great expanses of pristine wilderness.”

At Carmacks, a small riverside town named after one of the original Klondike gold miners, I met a German couple kayaking from Whitehorse to Eagle, Alaska, with their young son and husky dog. A wolf had stalked their husky at Selwyn, a remote ghost town, they told me. Englishman, Eddy Hely, was another freedom-loving paddler traveling downriver. At 32 years old, Hely travels the world seeking adventures, working when money supplies run dry. It’s not an uncommon story for travelers along the Yukon.

Klondike Gold

Three weeks in, I arrived at Dawson City, nestled deep in the Klondike Valley at the confluence of the Yukon and Klondike rivers. I resupplied and took a few days off. I spent a day on a palaeontology dig organized by Dr. Grant Zazula of the Yukon government who researches the prehistoric animals, including mammoths, scimitar cats, camels and nine-foot-long beavers, that roamed the area before the last ice age. I uncovered a 30,000-year-old buffalo horn and jawbone, complete with several teeth.

Most paddlers end their trip at Dawson, which retains its frontier, gold-rush feel. Called the Paris of the North when its population ballooned to 40,000 in 1898, today little over a thousand people call it home year-round. Its dirt-packed streets, old-fashioned street-side facades and employees dressed in period costume are at odds with the bustling RVs and tourists. Though only 4,000 men struck gold in the Klondike during its hey-day, today a handful of hardened prospectors still try their luck in the rivers nearby. 

If Dawson was the heart of the Klondike Gold Rush, then the Yukon River was the artery that fed it. Few prospectors followed the river past Dawson; fewer still to Fort Yukon, my final destination. Saying goodbye to Dawson and my Klondike quest, I took to the river. Warned of a wild ride ahead, anticipation spiked as I nosed the canoe into the strong current. Due to the flood conditions, I’d been clocking speeds up to 18 kilometers per hour and couldn’t imagine going faster. 

With the river unrolling before me—endless kilometers of spectacular mountain beauty—it was easy to see how the area captured the imagination of so many artists—writers Jack London, Robert Service and Pierre Burton, most famously. Signs of the gold rush dried up as skeletons of paddlewheelers disappeared from the shore. Past the granite marker at the Yukon-Alaskan border and several hard paddling days from the Arctic Circle, the river enters a vast swampland of islands called Yukon Flats, a major North American breeding ground for cranes, geese and ducks. The shoreline flattened, swallowing all recognizable landforms. Because the river tears down these islands and gravel bars as quickly as it builds them, my GPS was of no help. Lost in a 230-square-kilometer area of the braided river, at least I could be sure that as long as I was on the river, I was inching closer to the Bering Sea. With an ample reserve of food, I was far from panicked. Before turning in that night, a pair of sand-hill cranes silently drifted past my campsite in the gathering dusk. Then a pair of wolves howled in the distance. Bliss.

The following day, after covering almost 1,300 kilometers, I hauled my canoe out of the current at the Alaskan village of Fort Yukon perched just above the Arctic Circle. This was the finish line. After five weeks of paddling the Yukon River in flood conditions—taking more than 133,100 paddle strokes—my case of klondicitis is worse than ever. But unlike the prospectors before me, I know I’ll be back. 

If You Go…

Essentials for paddling the Yukon River

When to Go

Travel mid-June to take advantage of the daylight hours and experience the most of the midnight sun. On the summer solstice, June 21, travelers and locals alike meet on top of the Dome, a massive hill overlooking the river and Dawson City, to watch the sun dip below the mountains and rise again only a couple hours later. Or, paddle in July and time your arrival with the Dawson City Music Festival, a truly unique, grassroots event with world-class music (dcmf.com). August sees cooler temperatures, shorter days and fewer bugs. 

Where to Paddle

Most long-distance paddlers on the Yukon River start in Whitehorse and take out 460 miles and two weeks later in Dawson City. Shorten your trip by half by starting or ending in the town of Carmacks. Alternately, shorten your trip but not your route by participating in the Yukon River Quest, the world’s longest annual canoe and kayak race that spans the full distance from Whitehorse to Dawson City but takes place over five days—winners regularly cross the finish line in under 42 hours. yukonriverquest.com. 

Weather Concerns

“If you don’t like the weather, wait an hour” is a common saying in the Yukon. It’s unpredictable at best. Though temperatures can spike to 30 degrees Celsius and higher during summer months, a daily temperature of 18 degrees Celsius is average during the summer, dropping close to zero at night. Snow along the Yukon River is possible at any time of year. 

Don’t Forget

This wilderness journey takes place in the heart of grizzly bear country. Bear spray and an emergency communications device are musts. Don’t forget an eye mask to ensure you get some sleep. 

Outfitters and Guided Tours

Up North Adventures | upnorthadventures.com

Kanoe People | kanoepeople.com

Sea to Sky Expeditions | seatoskyexpeditions.com

Pathways Canada | canoe-yukon.com

Cabin Fever Adventures | cabinfeveradventures.com

Allen Macartney is an experienced wilderness paddler, writer and photographer. His expedition was sponsored by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.

This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2013 issue of Canoeroots Magazine.

Before having children, my wife and I spent just about every weekend exploring lakes and rivers by boat or canoe. Simply satisfying our angling habit had been demanding enough, but launching onto the stormy seas of parenthood created the sort of change and challenge that really rocked the boat. Thirteen-hour days on the water were suddenly no longer an option.

Even so, a young family doesn’t mean your rods and reels have to collect dust in the garage. Instil a passion for fishing in your young children and be rewarded with fun family excursions for years to come. Our girls are now in their mid-teens with infinitely more important distractions than fishing, but we still manage to spend time together on the water catching fish and having fun. As a parent, you can’t ask for much more than that. Create a life-long passion for fishing and nurture your angler from the cradle to the boat with these hard-earned pearls of advice.

Never Too Young 

Armed with a properly fitted PFD, a child is never too young to get out on the water. “I was about two years old when I started fishing with my dad,” says Gord Ellis, an outdoor writer, fisherman and father of two. “My boys were barely walking when they’d join us in the boat.” Ellis adds that they didn’t do much fishing at first, but being on the water became second nature to them and they get excited for each and every fishing trip now. 

A Rod of Their Own

A small spinning reel and three-foot rod is a great starter unit. Stay away from commercial kids-specific rod and reel combos that are more flash than function, can be frustrating to use and prone to breaking. Hand-me-down spinning reels paired with ice fishing rods were a solution for my girls. Like me, you’ll learn the hard way that pre-schoolers often simply let go of their fishing rods when they’re distracted. During the early stages of rod wielding, tying a string from the boat to the rod is a wise precaution. Ellis notes that his kids had a better experience with higher-quality gear and recognized quality early on. “By age six the boys started eyeing up my best jigging rods,” he says. Not until you’re older, Junior!

Choose Your Weapon

Like most adults, I was reluctant to let my daughters choose their own lures because I felt more qualified to select a presentation that would help them catch fish. I was quickly cured of this conceit when my three-year-old insisted on hooking her jig with the strangest looking soft plastic bait in my tackle box. While my wife and I used live minnows, my daughter worked a monstrosity called a “twin tailed skirted grub.” After she caught three walleye to our zero, I vowed never to doubt my daughters’ angling instincts. I still make general suggestions but I open my tackle box and let my girls choose their own lures. Often, I’m surprised and enlightened as to what works. 

Fish Where There’s Fish, Dummy

Children like catching fish more than fishing so go for the sure thing whenever possible. While hard-core anglers enjoy the search, youngsters are much happier casting off a point or into a pool at the base of rapids and experiencing instant gratification. Appreciating the subtleties of finding fish in challenging waters comes later.

Warm and Dry

Weather often doesn’t cooperate and an uncomfortable kid will not be receptive to the joys of angling. On the flipside, kids are surprisingly ambivalent to foul weather when they’re prepared for it. First on the list for angler Jamie Robinson is warm clothing and quality raingear for his son and daughter. 

“Thinking back, I’m surprised at some of the miserable weather we’ve been out in,” he says adding that when the kids are warm and dry there’s no complaining. Living in Northern Ontario, Robinson errs on the side of caution for his excursions, packing hats, mittens and warm jackets even in summer. “It’s nothing to see us in July in snow suits in the boat,” he jokes.

Bring Distractions

Even at the best fishing spots the bite is not always on and “I’m bored” can become an unpleasant soundtrack for the day. Robinson always brings snacks and books to occupy his kids during slow periods in the boat but draws the line at video games and electronics—kids get enough of that at home. It’s easier to keep excitable children entertained while fishing from shore than within the cramped quarters of a canoe as more distractions are at hand. For my girls, hot weather equals swimming, even if the fish are biting. Often, I’m pleasantly surprised that the walleye continue to bite in spite of the shrieking and thrashing limbs.

Pull Their Weight

While it’s tempting for parents to do everything ourselves, when kids assist with the duties that surround the trip they have an investment in the outing. As pre-schoolers, my daughters would pack their own snacks and help catch minnows and leeches for bait. Their experience has evolved to the point that my oldest can now back the boat and trailer into the water for me and my youngest can clean and fillet fish. Not only has involving them made them feel like an integral part of the adventure, but now they’re confident, capable and a big help.

Go One on One

With the whole family on board, a small craft can get cramped and hectic. The one-child-to-one-parent dynamic provides a great learning environment for kids and more time with a line in the water for parents. Young anglers love the undivided attention and mom or dad will have fewer snags and tangles to deal with. One-on-one provides the perfect opportunity to teach essentials like safe casting practices. Hint: Kids should always announce their casts. 

Learn When to Pull the Plug

Don’t let children push you around with early requests to leave but learn to recognise when your child has had enough. Better to have a shortened day on the water than imprint a bad experience. Whenever we couldn’t convince our daughters that boating and fishing was the most fun they could be having, we would head to shore, consistent with our pledge never to force fishing. 

While nurturing young anglers takes adaptation and even sacrifice, for parents who love angling and the outdoors, the investment is worthwhile, to be repaid with years of rewarding family adventures. 

An avid angler and camper, James Smedley’s life revolves around the outdoors. He has earned more than 30 U.S. and Canadian national awards for writing and photography.

This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2013 issue of Canoeroots Magazine.