Two in a Canoe

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PADDLE your own canoe” is a misleading expression. One in a canoe is not enough. A canoe is a boat for two. Right side up, and especially upside down, two are better than one.

A canoe is infinitely adaptable. You can paddle it, pole it, or sail it. You can sleep in it or under it. You can transport it in a baggage car, on a trailer, on top of your automobile or your back. It will float on a heavy dew, yet it is not too trail for the open ocean. In rapids it will give you the thrill of a ski run; on a lake at evening it is the embodiment of peace. A canoe, like rum, is a ready mixer. It goes well with fishing or birding or camping or loafing; in fact, with everything but courting. If you want a Permanent Bow Paddle, court her elsewhere.

The Bow Paddle and I learned the joys of canoe trips from a secondhand sixteen-footer, picked up at bargain rates from a canoe livery. We rigged a lateen sail of spinnaker cloth (nine by nine by eight feet along the leech), with spars of one-inch doweling, and a mast from a closet coat rail, stepped forward of the bow scat in a large curtain-rod socket. The rest of our equipment is equally simple and does not pretend to be standard. Choice in camping stuff is almost as personal as choice in books. Here is the inventory from stem to stern: a tin breadbox antproof — for the food, with butter, sugar, salt, etc., in icecream cartons; a small stove (simply an aluminum box with a grate, which also serves to carry odds and ends); a light axe; a flashlight; binoculars; United States Geodetic Survey maps (1 inch to the mile); extra clothes in a pack basket; blankets in a canvas roll; air mattresses; mosquito netting; a triangle of cotton cloth for a tent; and a waterproof canvas to go over all. At night, with the bow of the inverted canoe propped up on paddles lashed to the forward thwart, and the cloth pegged down at one side, you have a fair shelter calling for neither poles nor trees. The air mattresses are frankly sybariticat. Some may prefer to “rough it ”; we would rather sleep warm and keep our flanks dry. Balsam beds smell good but they are slow to make and hard on the trees. (We bought the mattresses, I remember, after a night in mid-April on a halfdrowned island in the Connecticut River opposite Northampton. It was raining; there was water around us, above us, and under us. In the night I was awakened by Black Ducks swimming about and feeding - whether inside or outside the tent I never knew.) Whatever your taste in equipment, keep it simple and light and tie it on.

In a canoe too many plans are as bad as too many gadgets: the best trip the Bow Raddle and I ever took began as an afternoon sail at the head of Lake Champlain; but we were prepared for anything, and it developed into a five-day run down the length of the lake and well into Canada. At the very most, plan the grand strategy and leave the tactics to the water and the weather. Over canoeists there watches a special Providence that takes the place of logical thought. Witness what happened to us one June morning on the upper Connecticut River. Here, near the Canadian border, the mighty Connecticut is only a fair-sized trout stream; but there had been a week of rain and the brown water was swirling high along the banks. Fishing was over for the time being. Even the optimistic couple from Boston, with whom we had fished the previous day, must be discouraged by now. But conditions poor for taking trout were good for a quick-water canoe run. We set out optimistically, our vague destination a town some twenty-five miles downstream. For ten or twelve miles all went well. Then a long stretch of heavy rapids or “haystacks” appeared ahead. Since there was no direction to go but ahead, we went ahead. We did not upset. We submerged slowly, gracefully, like a submarine when no pursuer is in sight. Then we bounced on bottom, grace departed, and we slithered ashore. And here is the point: on the bank, as if awaiting our arrival and submersion, stood the couple from Boston, with sweaters to warm us outside, whiskey to warm us inside, and a car to take us back to camp. From twenty-five miles of river, they had chosen this one spot to east a fly. At least they didn’t come home empty-handed.

Even in wartime, canoeist’s luck holds. Last summer, midway on a trip down Lake Memphremagog and the St. Francis River, we were stopped by a huge dam in the city of Magog. Here was the largest textile mill in Canada. As we approached, a stout uniformed guard, studded with artillery, rushed out of his doghouse and yelled at us. There was a war on. We could go no further. Might we carry around the darn? No. Might we go through the mill yard? No. What might we do? Go back the way you came. The trip was over. At that moment miraculously appeared a half-dressed figure, apparently aroused from his Sunday nap in the neat white house on shore. It was the manager of the local trout hatchery, himself an ardent canoeist. Our boat went on top of his car. In twenty minutes it had gone around the mill, through the city, and was floating again on the quiet St. Francis.

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Equal to almost anything, canoes are river rats at heart. Quick-water canoeing in the rapids is a sport of the early spring, when every brook brings melted snow down from the mountains and rivers run high. Involving both paddle and pole, it is a fine and strenuous art. From brief experience in and under white water, I can only suggest that an old keelless canoe, ripe for smashing, is the beginner’s best equipment. The absence of a keel makes the bottom more vulnerable but the boat itself easier to worm between the rocks. On a quick-water run, your dignity should also be ripe for smashing. You may find yourself lifted out of the boat like a monkey on your pole or sitting alone in midstream clinging to a boulder by your coccyx.

Swift or smooth, broad as the Hudson or narrow enough to scrape your gunwales, every river is a world of its own, with its individual tempo and life. Each mile on a river will take you further from home than a hundred miles on a road. You will see more in an hour than a motorist will see in a week. Birds, for example. River valleys are the songbirds’ paradise. In New England, the Hudson and Connecticut valleys are flyways of migration, and small streams generally provide food and cover along their banks, as well as the water that all birds must have. It is amusing to paddle down some quiet river, screened from the surrounding country by dense alder thickets, and try to determine by means of bird songs the nature of the land through which you are passing. Meadowlarks and Bobolinks indicate fields and pastures; Robins and Bluebirds and Orioles also mean open country — orchards perhaps, or scattered trees; but if you hear the soft voice of Thrushes, or the “Teacher! TEACHER! TEACHER!” of the Ovenbird, you are probably in the deep woods.

The Spotted Sandpiper and the Kingfisher are characteristic birds of the New England rivers, but the bird I associate most of all with canoeing is the American Merganser or Sheldrake. On one trip down the Connecticut, we drove before us no less than four families of Sheldrakes — the gray, rufous-headed mother ducks flopping noisily ahead to attract our attention, while the ducklings alternately hid in the bushes along the shore and sped like little aquaplanes after their parent. It seemed as if they would wear themselves out. Several times we hid the boat and tried to drive them back upstream, but in vain.

Birds add flavor to any outdoor activity. Even the disappointment of losing a large trout is tempered by finding the nest of a Water-Thrush at the edge of the pool. Yet to the layman the haunts and habits of birds are no more entertaining than the haunts and habits of bird-lovers. They will choose incredible places in which to pursue their hobby. Sometimes the choice is involuntary. Caught once by a thunder squall on a big lake, the B. P. and I had raced for a cottage on the nearest point, Alas, it was locked. Out back, however, stood a bright virgin one-holer. A squeeze, but rainproof — what is more, a perfect blind for bird study. Through the new moon in the door we could watch Sandpipers and Killdeer Plovers running over the beach, Ducks feeding off shore, and in the marsh grass a statuesque Great Blue Heron and an American Bittern or Bog-pumper. (The Bittern, by the way, has shown that the habits of birdlovers can be as odd as their haunts. On one occasion an important bird book was almost abandoned at the moment of publication because the editors could not agree as to whether the Bittern while “pumping” said: ugh PLUM pud’n or ugh plum PUD’N.)

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A canoe with a sail is like a horse with wings. It doesn’t come natural. But there is a place for Pegasus if you give him room to cavort in. To sail a canoe with any freedom, you need a broad river or, better still, a lake or salt-water harbor. Here, with leeboards and a light load, you can even beat to windward. (Leeboards are shaped like wide, stubby paddles, fastened to a transverse bar at right, angles to the gunwale, held tight with butterfly nuts so that they can be raised or lowered en route. On a long trip leave them home; they weigh more than they are worth. Unless the wind is fair, you will find it quicker to paddle.) For salt marshes and tidal estuaries, a canoe has the edge on an outboard motorboat; you may see a Duck before it takes flight, hear the Yellowlegs answer your whistle, smell the rich mud of the marsh. A canoe trip at sea is something of a tour de force, though one can take long voyages in good summer weather. Here your horse wants wings. On a broad expanse of water, you may paddle till your back aches but you only inch along. There is little change of scene, whereas a river has something new for you around every bend. Yet even salt-water paddling may also have its moments of perverse satisfaction, such as the time we smugly threaded our way into Marblehead Harbor through the cream of America’s racing yachts, helplessly becalmed outside.

But to me a canoe under sail will always mean Lake Champlain. A single trip down the hundred-mile lake and a stretch of the Richelieu River gave a taste of everything; sailing, paddling, excitement, and peace. Heading north, we had sailed through the narrows at Ticonderoga and Crown Point. Behind us lay a stretch of lake that had seemed more like a sluggish river, with pickerel weed lining the banks and Red-Wing Blackbirds rising from the cattails. Only the bantam lighthouses had given promise of wider waters to come. Now the promise was being fulfilled. Champlain was no longer a river. Far to the west lay the gray folds of the Adirondacks; to the east, half hidden from our sight by the sail, rose the knobbier mountains of Vermont. The Bow Paddle lay back to the mast, (he sheet wrapped round her foot. I leaned on the steering paddle as it curved with the weight of water. Probably we were not making more than five or six miles an hour. But speed is relative, and with the rail a few inches above the whitecapped surface we were flying. Two days of this and we iiad reached Yalcour Island — the scene of Benedict Arnold’s famous naval battle with Burgoyne. We looked in vain for a camping spot on its steep slopes, A tiny lodge at length appeared. Here was room for a bed and a lire. We heaved out our junk (it cannot be described as “duffel”), built a tire of driftwood in the stove, blew up the air mattresses (seven puffs will do it), and created our personal brand of liobo jungle. As we finished our supper and Champlain Specials (^ Rye, Lake Champlain) the wind dropped. A waxing moon dimmed the last embers of the fire. The gulls ceased to cry. Back and forth between two headlands, forming the cusps of a crescent beach, flew dozens of bats. The pebbles of the beach itself gave forth a low rumble, quite unlike the hiss of waves on sand, but equally good for sleep.

It was on this same trip that our canoe became a ship. In five days of sailing, we had reached the foot of Lake Champlain and were crossing the line into Canada. A canoe, I expected, would be beneath official notice. On the contrary, a customs officer examined us as carefully as lie would a seagoing vessel, plumbed our hold and recorded the colors of our blankets. Satisfied at last, he gave me a certificate declaring that “The Master of the S’. S. I*aul Brooks’* had complied with all regulations. Sixteen feet of sturdy ship, swollen with new dignity, headed down the Richelieu River.

The canoeist’s Providence that hauled us out of the Connecticut River and around the dam at Magog made a fine last gesture as we left Champlain for home. In shirts and shorts we were sitting among the well-dressed passengers on the New York train, Whitehall bound, with the boat in the baggage car. From the window we watched our trip unfold, like a motion-picture film speeding in reverse. (I figured two days’ canoeing, on the average, for each hour of a fast train.) Our automobile was still parked by the lake —and the railroad—some miles above Whitehall. IIow to return to it from there was a problem yet unsolved. We saw it. flash by the window. But express trains do not stop for canoeists. And then, incredibly, the train slowed down and stopped. The northbound was going by. To the consternation of the other passengers, we leaped from our seats, slipped out the door, and returned along the tracks. . . .

America has turned her back upon her rivers. Once her lifeblood, they are now too often In r drains; the path to the front door has become the backyard dump. Fishermen have already done much to change this; today, as pleasure driving vanishes, pleasure boating may do the rest. Canoe miles are not rationed. Turn around, America!