Murmuring along at 30,000 feet over one of Canada’s great rivers, shoehorned into a coach seat of an unnamed domestic air carrier (whose motto appears to be, “We’re not happy ‘til you’re not happy”), I’m doing some serious thinking.
Though canoeing hasn’t enjoyed the recent explosive growth of paddleboarding, or even the slow upward tick of recreational kayaking, it’s not a pastime destined to fade into obscurity, as some have claimed. No, in my estimation, there’s never been a better time to be a canoeist.
Why there’s never been a better time to be a canoeist
Perhaps it’s my sardined hips talking, but if there ever was a remedy for dashing from point A to B in densely packed straight lines via airplanes, highways and subways, it would be meandering through the crannies of fresh- and saltwater ways, packed with everything you need to sustain the quiet comforts of trail life. If there is an antidote for microwave dinners and rushed meals eaten on the go, it has to be a steaming camp coffee, the time to daydream, and dawdling one-pot meals lovingly cooked over an open fire.
Today’s canoeists are lucky. It has never been easier for beginners to get involved. Whether in the name of physical fitness, recreation, socializing, or just trying something new, operators in cities from coast-to-coast now offer introductory lessons and rentals.
When those basic skills are mastered, there are ever-more semi-wilderness locations and outfitters offering cleared trails and easy portages that are user-friendly. These places are far enough out of the way to commune with unpeopled spaces and see the electric-light-free splendors of the night sky.
Progress of a different kind
2016 boasts a dizzying array of material choices, technological advancements and all-new canoe designs. From detailed plans and videos to build your own stripper canoe, to beginner-friendly starter packages, right on up to high-end, feather-light, ultra-strong canoes and accessories, there’s something for the most demanding and discriminating paddler. Whether you want to go light, go long or just go now, there is something on the market for everyone.
Of course, the true joy and promise of paddling is not in the stuff, and not even in the many wonderful places where paddling is possible in North America—it is in the fulfilling act of self-propulsion itself. There is something restoratively simple, almost purifying, in reaching forward with a paddle and pulling a vessel suspended between earth and sky into a new place in space and time.
Paddling offers progress of a different kind. For each action of the stroke, there is the reaction of glide and recovery, an iterative meditation of immediate, visible and tangible cause and effect. In this mediated age of disconnected sound bites, infomercials and a 24/7 personal news cycle, silent craft can still quiet the mind and meld body and soul in the fluidity of unfettered motion.
In that silence rise the imponderables, not least of which is the value of those ever-disappearing truly wild places, where meaningful reconnection to nature and to self is still possible. When we commune with water we’re intertwined in a system much larger than ourselves—one only needs to glimpse a waterway’s snaking tendrils from an airplane window to see how water connects and binds everything on land.
If there ever was a time when we needed those disappearing, wild and watery places—when we need those off-grid strokes to remind us of who we are, what we should be, and how we should live our lives—then that time is now. Taking a leaf out of H.D. Thoreau’s book, “Everyone should believe in something. I believe I’ll go canoeing.” You?
James Raffan is the former executive director of the Canadian Canoe Museum, a passionate canoeist and dedicated traveler (he wrote this piece over the Peace River en route to Whitehorse). Tumblehome is a regular column in Canoeroots.
This article was first published in the 2016 Paddling Buyer’s Guide. “I’m a believer.” | Feature photo: Dawn LaPointe / Radiant Spirit Gallery
