How many canoeists do we have here?

I thought I'd add a few shots:

Here's my wife, and our Huskey/Border Collie mix, in her custom built 16 ft Western Red/Eastern White Cedar canvas canoe. She plays the Eastern Woodland's Indian flute(a six-hole wooden flute) and enjoys the sound when we're out in the middle of no-damn-where. She also paddles with more grace and fluidity than anyone else I've ever seen:




This is my wife again doing a maneuver known as a "controlled submerge". This is obviously the finale move in a rather long dancing routine. The submerge transitions off a spectacularly fast spin (pirouette). This move takes approx 1 1/2 minutes to finish during which the top rail must remain perfectly still and stable. She's in my 16' 8" White Pine stripper:




I just like this shot from a Frog Lake campsite in southern Nova Scotia:


A long day on the water. This was taken several years ago on a trip to Kejimkujik N.P. in Nova Scotia:
 
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Bigblue17 said:
Codger - Several years ago I took a group of college students from Springfield MA on a trip down the Buffalo. We passed under that bridge. AMAZING trip!! The most amazing part though was seeing tires, and house siding, and even a 100 lb propane tank stuck in the trees forty feet in the air. We were told these were the remains of the flood you mention.

I did the 9-day trip solo in one of my cedar canvas canoes. I paddle solo all the time and was just fine, but the canoe.....won't do that again! Complete canvass replacement upon return. Y'alls got some damn sharp rocks down there and when I did the river there was a lot less water than shown in that video!

BTW - The surrounding region(Buffalo National Forest and the Ozarks) is some of the most beautiful countryside I've had the pleasure of visiting.
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The river is amazing and I have floated it in all seasons, mostly in sections. My longest trip was two weeks solo. My most amazing trip was finished paddling in the moonlight. It was very hard to read the currents and see the rocks. I grounded quite a few times. My most dangerous trip was in the spring during normal high water. My son was 14 that year and we spent most of our time rescuing hypothermic novices, including one young teen girl and one 71 year old man. In normal high water, the current carries through a lot of willows and brush on what are normally gravel bars. Air temp was mid sixties but the water was low fifties.

And no, while I've always wanted a classic wood and canvas, your experience is the very reason I have always put that dream on hold. Sharp limestone breaks off of those towering bluffs and litters the river bottom. While it gives the clear water a beautiful blue-green tint, it is very rough on canoes.

Natives believed that each person has a place on earth where they feel the most comfortable, described as their "center". If it is so, then the Buffalo National River is mine.

This is Bee Bluff just upstreem from Steel Creek. Legend has it that two boys scaled the bluff on makeshift ladders to raid an ancient behive in the bluff face.

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Bigblue17 said:
I thought I'd add a few shots:

Here's my wife, and our Huskey/Border Collie mix, in her custom built 16 ft Western Red/Eastern White Cedar canvas canoe. She plays the Eastern Woodland's Indian flute(a six-hole wooden flute) and enjoys the sound when we're out in the middle of no-damn-where. She also paddles with more grace and fluidity than anyone else I've ever seen:




This is my wife again doing a maneuver known as a "controlled submerge". This is obviously the finale move in a rather long dancing routine. The submerge transitions off a spectacularly fast spin (pirouette). This move takes approx 1 1/2 minutes to finish during which the top rail must remain perfectly still and stable. She's in my 16' 8" White Pine stripper:




I just like this shot from a Frog Lake campsite in southern Nova Scotia:


A long day on the water. This was taken several years ago on a trip to Kejimkujik N.P. in Nova Scotia:
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Saddly Free Style paddling has waned. Good to see it still alive .:cool:
 
Mewolf - While I agree with your assessment of declining popularity, I should clarify your statement.

"Free style" canoeing is a considerably different style of paddling than my wife I do. We practice and teach what is known as Classic Canadian Solo or "Omering" (Google is your friend). Our goal is to perform the maneuvers with the maximum amount of grace and smoothness and a minimum amount of movement in both the canoe and the paddler. In classic style, one paddles only on your "on" side' Classic is also It should look as if the canoe is doing it on its own.

Freestyle is a much more flamboyant and physically active style with the paddler performing dramatic weight shifts and often moving from bow to stern or side to side. Paddle strokes are also done on both sides of the canoe.

The two styles were also developed for completely different reasons. Freestyle has always been a performance art style. Classic was developed as a means for a solo paddler to cross large bodies of water in an empty canoe.

There are a few regions where there are very healthy Classic paddling communities..... Adirondack Mtns, the Boundary Waters region, and parts of Pennsylvania along the Schuylkill River.

I love watching free stylers. They can perform some amazing feats in those small canoes.
 
I wish I had learned to do freestyle when I was young. However, at that time we were more into the "heh!... hold my beer and watch this!" style.

This is the "bones" of a rapid called the "Cascades of Extinction" shown with almost no flow (Big Piney River, AR.). The name of the big rock has been abbreviated from the days when we ran it in open canoes with no floatation. It was the Big MF then and it drew canoes like a magnet at higher flows.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ6MHseJT14

You can imagine what it is like with three or four more feet, a more normal flow.
 
I stand clarified.:thumbup: I was introduced to Freestyle while at Bell canoe in the early ninties; yes amazing work and skill.
I am more of a classic paddler myself, but did'nt know it had a name.:o I can paddle all day on my "on" side if need be,but my white water years
has me reaching across from time to time.:)

Karen Knight, one of the best freestylers ive seen.
[video=youtube;vQWt7jD57X4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQWt7jD57X4[/video]
 
Great video depicting one of the better freestyle paddlers around. My wife and Karen used to do demos together during the annual WCHA(http://www.wcha.org/) gatherings at Paul Smith College in the Adirondacks.

However, it looks like she's having a tough time for some reason. She can paddle A LOT better than that. A few observations:

- Her hands.... they are up so high in the air! Its fighting gravity, scares away all the wildlife, and looks like crap. We call that "skying".
- Her off-side rail is shaking like a leaf.... up and down.... with every stroke. Its wasted energy due to her being so stiff and tense. She's the jittery one.
- Watch how her paddle splashes with almost every return stroke. Again, wasted energy, and it looks sloppy. I don't think that's her paddle. It looks awkward in her hands. Karen doesn't usually use a plastic and aluminum Carlisle paddle. She purchased one of my hand carved paddles about fifteen years ago which I know she used for many years.

Here is Becky Mason, the daughter of Paul Mason - the "Father" of Classic Canadian Solo(Becky has actually trademarked that name). She carried the Classic standards these days and this video shows some of the reasons why:
http://www.redcanoes.ca/becky/canoe/solopaddling.html

Watch her upper rail. Its like a rock.... never wavers. The only time her paddle splashes is while doing a move known as a "skimming pry" at 1:55 of the film(she does several, but this one is a close-up). Becky is not a fan of "in-water recoveries" where the paddle remains in the water on the return stroke. Her father wasn't either. That one, small item is the only beef I have with her style. Otherwise..... she is EXTRAORDINARY!! THAT is Classic Canadian Solo!!

And, Rolf Kraiker. He is one of the more respected teachers of this style on the continent. His form is impeccable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyJHA_jrzaI&list=UU-_XtsMCvE0gQnn-Nyo6e_w&index=5&feature=plcp

Edit to Add: HAhahahahaha.... I just found this. The article referenced in this piece is written by.... ME! It'll give you a bit of an explanation of the origins of the Classic style.
http://www.adventurecanoe.com/forum/topic/canadian-style-paddling-omering
 
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not a canoe but I've been a kayaker for years.
Lake Amistad bass:
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Nueces River (texas)
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My daughter in our home-made kayak "child seat"
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Dang It!! this thread went and fired up my paddlin bone; I had it neatly tucked away.:D
 
Codger_64 said:
I can pick you up at the Nashville airport. :)
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Tempting, but there is a bit too much ice boating to done right now.;) Went 50.9mph today:D
Think of a canoe 12feet longX21" wide with 60 sq.ft. of sail,,,no brakes.
 
mewolf1 said:
Tempting, but there is a bit too much ice boating to done right now.;) Went 50.9mph today:D
Think of a canoe 12feet longX21" wide with 60 sq.ft. of sail,,,no brakes.
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No. Just no. That was the speed I was going on a sled when I broke my arm in three places. No.
 
Canoeing is one of my favorite modes of travel. In the Yukon I've canoed the MacMillan, Snake, Big Salmon (twice), Nisutlin, and Hyland Rivers. Also a few in the NWT and AK.

My favorite boat is a hand-made 1972 Old Town wood & canvas lightweight (around 55 lbs). Surprisingly fast for a fifteen footer. Coolest boat I ever saw was a birch bark in the Amundson Museum, Eagle, AK.

DancesWithKnives
 
mewolf1 said:
Tempting, but there is a bit too much ice boating to done right now.;) Went 50.9mph today:D
Think of a canoe 12feet longX21" wide with 60 sq.ft. of sail,,,no brakes.
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My dentist in the States *loves* this - a bit on the crazy side though! He goes out on Lake Michigan and nearby in-land lakes. He's a great guy - wish i was able to see him more often.
 
Guys, think of this; the country was opened up by explorers in canoes. It was in a canoe that they first saw the vast interior of a new land. The explorers, then the fur trappers and traders. The rivers west were the highways to a new land. Only after the first people in canoes explored it, came the keel boats and flat boats and then river boats.

Some kids want to run away to join the circus.When I was a little kid I wanted to run away to join the French Canoe voyagers. I was soooo disappointed that they were no more.

Carl.
 
I just saw this thread. I did a bunch of canoeing for field work the past few seasons doing environmental surveys of some large tribs of the Missouri (Chariton, Gasconade, Platte (NE), Niobrara, Kansas, Big Sioux, Little Sioux, Floyd, Boyer, and a few others). The canoeing was the fun part. Getting in and out of some of the places we had to get to with all our gear and the other crew's 14ft jon boat was a pain.
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I also went out with a buddy on Tuttle Creek Reservoir this past summer. We checked out a canoe from his university's rec dept. and went out there for a weekend. I just put it over the cab of my pickup and ran a strap through the cab and foam pool noodles. I put on a front rope for extra security, but the straps did all the work. Highway speeds up to about 70mph and no movement or shifting/loosening of straps.

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My wife's not much for paddling, but I'll get the kids out when they're older.
 
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Codger, are there any interesting places near you for a day trip by canoe?

I am down south a little in N Alabama
 
Yes! The section of the Tennessee Buffalo River I have been floating the most this past year from Topsey bridge to Bell bridge is an easy day trip (8 miles/4 hours), or can be made an overnighter if you wish. Almost entirely class I with good fishing and gravel bar camping. I take my time and often do it in a lazy six hours. There are cabins available at Bell bridge. This is just North of Waynesboro in Wayne County.
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Great, and many thanks. Is there a service to portage me and canoe back to start point?
Codger_64 said:
Yes! The section of the Tennessee Buffalo River I have been floating the most this past year from Topsey bridge to Bell bridge is an easy day trip (8 miles/4 hours), or can be made an overnighter if you wish. Almost entirely class I with good fishing and gravel bar camping. I take my time and often do it in a lazy six hours. There are cabins available at Bell bridge. This is just North of Waynesboro in Wayne County.
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Several depending on the section you choose. It costs me $20 for my canoe. gear, Jake and me to be loaded on the van and delivered to the put-in. Our takeout is normally where I leave my truck. Floating downstream from there, it would be about the same. Bell bridge is where the livery is located. There are several more up and down the river. I like leaving my truck at the livery because it is always attended and I have truck bed tool boxes full of tools. They will also shuttle your vehicle for you for the same fee if you want to drive to the put in or have it handy at a different take out. Crazy Horse is the one I use most but, as I said, there are several. These guys have been quite accomodating and helpful to me and Jake. They gave me no guff at all (and no extra charge) about transporting Jake in their shuttle buses or vans.
 
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