By J. Lynn Fraser

There is a reason why the human body and boats are both called 'vessels'. They are our repositories of dreams, memories, emotions and experiences. On a grand scale the canoe represents Canada and its wilderness to many. It is our ready reference to our collective spiritual/cultural body politic. Joan Murray wrote in Canadian Art (1999) that, "For Canadians the canoe serves as a barque similar to the soul boat of the Egyptians - a boat that carries the gods, the spirits, the shaman." Anyone who has spent time in a canoe, depended on it, experienced life's joys and trials in it, knows that there is a relationship between the paddler and her/his canoe. It is a relationship that is a melding of the personality of paddler and what the canoe has brought him/her through. This essay will discuss the experiences of some who have tales to tell about their canoes and canoeing. I am confident that you will recognize your own experiences through theirs.

I spoke with George Drought of Wilderness Bound Guiding (Wilderness Bound Video Productions) in the very urban surroundings of Toronto's Le Select Bistro about his canoeing experiences. Newly arrived in Canada from England in 1956 he made his first solo trip down the Gatineau where he experienced some white water. His first major trip north would come in 1974 where he ran the Mattagami River with a group of friends. A later trip on the Moose River would find a canoe dumped with its bottom taken out. In 1977 he travelled the Missinaibi River with friends using what was then the new ABS-1 plastic canoe. It was one of the first in Canada at that time. Newer versions of the brand are still known for their slippery ability to slide off rocks but are inevitably lighter than the original version. In comparison today's Kevlar canoe, though expensive, is light weight, strong and forgiving.

Through his many years of canoeing the ABS remains George's canoe of choice. It has evolved over the past 25 years, and still incorporates the Prospector design. It is a canoe that "makes him feel comfortable", he told me, as he knows how it will perform. He and his wife, Barbara Burton, own six ABS canoes in addition to the rest of their collection. It was through their mutual love of canoeing that George met Barbara. As we sat, George, a human encyclopedia of canoe specifications, told me about the manufacturing history and concerns of canoe design. During his commentary I was aware of his reluctance to connect an emotional association with the canoes of his past. But finally he, a serious and practical man, told me about 'Old Yellow'. "Ah ha," I thought. George's voice changed when speaking of Old Yellow despite his insistence that he held "no affection for individual canoes", that they are "simply a manifestation of freedom" and that design, above all, was significant to him in canoes. Old Yellow is now 25 years old and still kept by George and his wife. I guess he really likes its design.

Through a surprisingly clear telephone connection to Nunavut I spoke with Paul Laundry, of Northwinds Arctic Tours, who has travelled to both the geographic and magnetic North Poles. The dog sled, or snow canoe as I like to call it, is currently his favourite mode of transportation. There have been many canoes in Paul's life. His first was a 17' Grumman on which he took a number of long trips, including ones to Hudson and James Bay. His wife, Matty McNair, inherited a 17' Grumman on which her parents had won several white water canoeing championships in a row. That canoe, which is now 40 to 45 years old, rests in New Hampshire. Matty has fond memories of her parents racing in that canoe. On a Kennebec he took two week trips that included one to the Gull River in northern Ontario. One trip, using the Kennebec on the Moisie River, included a three months pregnant Matty. I was unable to interview Matty, but I would have been very interested to learn of her memories of that trip.

Paul said that his canoes are a part of him and that he sees them as old friends. Paddling, he told me, "had a profound effect on his life." Today Paul uses dog sleds as his mode of transportation into the wilderness. He describes them as "a joy to take [out]". Like the canoes of his past they are his "companions", that should respected and treated well. Canoes and dog sleds both have in common that their user[s] depend on them in often dangerous conditions. If they fail, Paul commented, you are "out of luck". He advises neither sled nor canoe, nor the trip undertaken, should exceed the user's ability.

My memories of canoeing are not as exotic as Paul or George's but they are still special for me. In my teens I would paddle in a big, wooden, whale of a canoe painted a very institutional green colour. This was on Balsam Lake where my parents had a cottage, roughly two hours north of Toronto. Like its close neighbour, Lake Simcoe, Balsam is a very moody lake that can change from saucer smooth to violently choppy in a blink of an eye. On the Gull River, which feeds into Balsam, every few years a canoeist would drown in the Gull's unpredictable combination of wind and waves found in its high walled, long, channel.

I thought little about that when canoeing. For me the canoe, and rowing as well, was an escape from a chaotic home environment that was worse than what the lake could bring. I'd find respite in the sound of the canoe as it slipped and sliced through the water and in the feel of cooling rivulets of water as they passed over my fingers from the raised paddle. Each day I'd travel further and harder, challenging myself. I found reassurance in the familiarity of the shoreline and water I knew so well. To this day the sound of waves breaking on a shore, hearing wind through boughs of long pine needles, and being on water, in any type of boat, gives me peace and contentment. Paul, George and myself represent different types of experience with canoeing. What we have in common are the fond memories that we associate with our canoes, our faithful companions.

Lynn Fraser is a Toronto-based textile artist and writer for various magazines on art and culture related issues.

This story first appeared in Che-Mun Outfit 102 in 2000.