Canoeing

Take a little time to watch these two inspiring canoe videos, it’s worth it. “The Canoe” features footage of Algonquin Provincial Park where we go for our Venture Crew’s annual canoe trips. There’s a segment on building a birch bark canoe, so I just had to add the second film to this post. Filmed in the early 1970’s “Cesar’s Bark Canoe” features what bushcraft guru Ray Mears calls the epitome and icon of bushcraft, the finest craft people have ever created; the birchbark canoe....

Reading Canoeing Wild Riversis like attending a master class in wilderness travel. Cliff Jacobson’s 30th anniversary edition of the classic *Expedition Canoeing (nowCanoeing Wild Rivers)*is required reading for anyone planning or even thinking about a high adventure trip. This completely updated and revised edition features dozens of full-color photos, how-to illustrations, source charts, canoeing and camping techniques, and a chapter full of hard-won advice from a couple of dozen canoeing experts, and a new chapter devoted to paddling desert and swamp rivers....

My Scout video picks for this week include a great game from Spain and birch bark canoes. Ninja Slap – Jugeo Scout This sophisticated game of tag shown in this video of Spanish Scouts was very popular with my Scouts for a year or two. The game begins in a tight circle, shoulder-to-shoulder, with hands in the middle. On the count of three players shout “Ninja” and jump back into a “Ninja” pose....

Scouts and their guide paddle during the beginning of a storm that threatened the lives of a group of Scouts. (photo from Cincinnati .com) On Thursday June 12th a group of Scouts on a trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness with the Northern Tier High Adventure Program were rescued by helicopter after their canoes capsized in a storm. Everyone survived, there were no major injuries. I study incidents like this carefully because our troop has been doing canoe treks in Algonquin Provincial Park for nearly a decade....

Set aside your paperwork, take a moment, and join me on this six minute retreat into the lakes and forests of New Brunswick, Canada with painter Réjean Roy. Le Peintre, le canot et la forêt (Painter, canoeing and forest) records Roy’s traditional canoeing kit (note the wanigan, canvas portage pack, trapper tent, canvas covered canoe, and tin stove). I’m more nervous releasing this video than any paintings I’ve done. It may be because this little video hasn’t been produced in a professional manner – I am not a videographer, but a painter....

Here’s a series of five videos featuring camping guru Cliff Jacobson talking about the nuts and bolts of canoe camping courtesy of the folks at Morral River FIlms A respected outdoors writer and wilderness guide Cliff is the most published canoeing/camping writer of this century.Cliff is the author of Expedition Canoeing, Camping’s Top Secrets and a frequent contributor to Boys Life and Scouting magazine.. I interviewed Cliff for Scoutmaster Podcast 54....

Wanigan is borrowed from Ojibwa word for “storage pit” as a name for a storage box like the ones shown here. In some regions a houseboat, temporary hut on a log raft, a small house, bunkhouse, or shed mounted on skids may all be called a wanigan. Rob built the wanigans shown above and decorated them with woodburned illustrations from the book Cache Lake Country; here’s a few more shots of Rob’s work:...

The folks at Paddling Light have published this decision tree for canoeists and kayakers faced with the eternal question; “is this the perfect campsite or should we look for another one?”. If you have no idea what this is all about you haven’t been in a canoe trying to decide if it’s time to find a campsite, if the one just ahead may be better, or if you should settle for the one you are looking at now, eh?...

On our high adventure canoe trip each crew packs and cooks food for a group of five to nine Scouts. Our menu is a combination of freeze dried and grocery store food that keeps the cost reasonable while providing good nutrition and good eating. After making adjustments to our menus and the kit we assembled to prepare it over two or three years we developed a pretty well tuned approach. Our cooking gear packs down into two basic packages – a cook box that we fondly call ‘Tidy Cats’ and a bag of cook pots....

Modern portage packs have an advanced suspension system that is much like a normal backpack. At the beginning of a high adventure canoe trip our portage packs our packs weigh about 60-70 pounds. This is quite a load for some of us but time has proven that even our smallest Scouts can handle them very well. As the trip progresses we eat our way light and by the last portage out the packs are about 20-30 pounds lighter....

: Portage pack and day bag (the waist or lumbar pack) The canoe never gets lighter, but the packs do. Pack with paddles. Triumph! The end of a five mile portage. Any high adventure canoe trip requires selecting the right gear and clothing. I am pretty specific about what we carry on our trips because I know one thing for sure; in the case of where we are going:...

For the last nine years every summer our Scouts pile into a van and drive north to Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park for a week-long high adventure canoe trip. Our crews typically cover 40-50 miles of paddling and portaging during our stay. Two years ago we started alternating these canoe trips with a trip to Kandersteg International Scout Center every third year. Here’s the background information on how we make this happen....

Well, we’re back from our sixth annual canoe trip to Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park and it was a great success. This year a record 23 people in three crews participated. Each crew took a different route through the 3000 square mile park of about 40 to 50 miles of paddling and portaging. Mounting such a trip involves a sea of details. Perhaps the most complex bit of planning was purchasing and packing 414 servings of food required for six days of travel....

Normal camping tarps have some weaknesses; grommets may tear out in heavy wind, there are never enough points to tie onto and while most people use a center pole to hold the tarp up it typically falls down when the wind picks up. Cooke Custom Sewing’s Tundra Tarps solve these problems and incorporate several other valuable improvements in coated 1.9 oz. nylon or 1.1 oz (a 10×14′ tarp weighs 24 ounces) silconized nylon-...

I actually made a canoe paddle, and plan on making some more. My new paddle served me admirably on many miles of paddling over the past seven years. Making Canoe Paddles is as complete a treatment of the subject as one could hope to find. Making a paddle is a challenge but the authors explain every step with well-illustrated clarity. The tools, woods, adhesives and techniques are all explained thoroughly and several pleasant hours of work result in a tool that you’ll be proud to own and use....

Anyone planning a canoe trip of a few days or a few weeks will benefit from studying Jacobson’s careful treatment of the subject: he offers solid, tested techniques and then points out the many ways things could go wrong. He uses stories from his considerable experience to illustrate how important it is to plan carefully, not to compound mistakes and thereby opens up the possibilities of canoeing in some incredibly wonderful places....