CHAPTER II.
CANOE CRUISING
THERE are two kinds of canoe
cruises, both of them splendid outdoor recreations for boys, the lake
and river cruise in the open canoe, with the paddle as motive power,
and the decked sailing canoe where the paddle is of secondary
importance and a pair of batwing sails eats up the miles of distance
between you and your destination. Both are fine sport, and both
constitute the easiest form of travel in the open. Do not take sails on
a canoe cruise unless you are going to have plenty of use for them, as
they are heavy and much in the way in stowing duffle; and do not take
an ounce more weight in any case than is positively necessary.
I would set a limit of fifty pounds of belongings to every
man on the trip. Even if there are only trifling portages, such as
lifting over down trees, around obstructions on the banks or over dam
sites, too much duffle becomes a burden, and when afloat its weight
brings the canoe dangerously low down in the water and puts a lot of
work in paddling on the voyageur's shoulders. The same canoe that will
fly along like a fairy when properly loaded will act like a submerged
turtle when just a wee bit overloaded. And it is so easy to take too
much!
 IN CAMP IN A DECKED CRUISING CANOE
One of my first canoe trips was nearly spoilt by
just this duffle trouble. We both swore ourselves black in the face
that not a pound extra would be taken, but this is what we actually did
take : -- For guns we took the shotguns as a matter of course, and, as
if that was not enough, the rifles also, in case any long range shots
might offer, and then, piled on that, a revolver each for snakes and
turtles, ammunition in generous quantities for the three, -- let's see,
that makes 26 pounds of extra useless weight, not counting the
shotguns, which are doubtful commodities in a summer trip and apt to
get you into trouble with game wardens, as snipe are the only game
birds shootable in September when we went; then, as we might have a few
miles sailing, we took along the sails, 25 pounds more, mostly in the
way, and only used once, for we had headwinds on all the other open
stretches; then we took along a sack of potatoes when we knew well we
would pass lots of farms, another useless 20 pounds of weight -- the
wonder to me is that she floated at all when we set forth!
As it was she had just three inches of freeboard, and was
as logy as a water-soaked tree trunk. Well, we had a strong northwest
wind to face the first thing; five miles of it. Did we hoist the sails
and tack? We tried it, but made as much leeway as headway and finally
ended by paddling the whole distance, arriving by nightfall where we
had allowed to reach in but three hours on the schedule. All the
blankets, etc., were soaking wet, from water shipped aboard off the
whitecaps, and we were half the night drying them out so that we could
get off to sleep.
Our first portage was a hummer! Only around a dam, a few
hundred feet, but it took five trips to do it -- firearms, bedding,
grub, cook outfit, tent and sails (now soaking wet, and all weighing
twice what they would dry). Again tribulation camped on our trail when
we struck long reaches of shallow water. She drew so much that we both
had to get out and wade, towing her up stream. The end of the second
day saw eleven miles of progress and 150 miles to go. On the third day
we passed under a railroad bridge, went into camp and shipped back home
by express the sails, guns, ammunition and spuds, and kept only the
fishing tackle, tent, bedding and cook outfit, with a few provisions.
Then we made easy progress, but our bad start had cost us two days'
fishing at the lake which we were headed for.
This little sketch of how not to do it brings to mind
several points taught us by hard experience. In the first place
everything in a canoe that water can hurt must go in a waterproof
duffle bag, either side-opening or end-opening. For clothing, blankets,
tent, etc., the 11 x 24-inch brown waterproof end-opening duffle bag
costing a dollar is the thing. It will take folded blankets and tents
easily and they can be pulled out without trouble. For food the
side-opening bag 8 x 22 inches, with rows of pockets inside, is the
thing. When you go ashore for the night campment, drive in two upright
stakes to windward of your cook fire and hang up this bag by the
grommet holes in the lip, put there for that purpose.
All your main food sacks are now in plain sight, in rows
along the bottom of the kitchen bag, where each can be chucked back as
used; and in the pockets are small bags of salt, tea, baking powder,
soup powders, etc., while the knives, forks, spoons, chain pothooks and
the like are handy in the top pockets. This duffle bag has a stout
maple rod sewed into one lip, and to fasten it up you roll the other
lip around this rod until the bag is rolled tight and then secure with
rope around the bag or a pair of school book straps. As these
side-opening bags are rather expensive to buy I will give you the way
to make them yourself.
Get a yard of ten-ounce brown paraffined duck canvas at a
ship chandlers or awning maker's. It costs forty cents a yard, and
comes 28 inches wide. Cut off an eight-inch strip along one edge and
out of this strip make two circular ends for your bag, 8 inches in
diameter.
Get a 1/2-inch maple dowel from a pattern shop or
department store or hardware store, and cut it 20 inches long. Sew a
hem along both lips of your bag, and slip the rod into one lip and
secure by sewing over the end of the hem. Now sew the circular ends
half around to the side of your bag and fill in the rest of the space
with a khaki end-cloth as shown in the pattern, finishing the whole
thing with an edging of gray tape. Sew inside two khaki strips 8 inches
wide by 30 inches long, to make two rows of three pockets each. Each
pocket is 8 inches wide and will take ten inches of your cloth, the
back of the pocket being the wall of the bag. Put two school straps
around the bag, about a foot apart, and join with a strap riveted
around each of the two straps to make a carrying handle, or else just
get a ten-cent shawl strap at the five-and-ten-cent store and use it in
lieu of the school-book straps. Total cost: canvas, 40 cents, khaki, 20
cents, shawl straps, 10 cents; all together, 70 cents.
One bag will hold all the food four men will need on a
week's canoe trip, and keep it dry and handy to use. For food sacks the
standard sack for bulk food is 8-inch diameter by 10-inch depth, and
they cost fifteen cents each. To make them yourself get from a
sporting-goods store two yards of paraffined muslin, cut out eight-inch
round bottoms, and 10-inch high by 24-inch circumference sides, sewing
the sides around the bottoms and turning inside out. It can all be done
on a domestic sewing machine, using a heavy needle and number 40
cotton. Finish the food sacks with a foot of white tape, sewed up near
the top of the bag for a tie-string.
You will also need three plain rectangular 4-inch by
9-inch bags, and four small 3-inch by 6-inch bags of the same
paraffined muslin. To make paraffined muslin yourself, buy the ordinary
unbleached muslin and steep in a mixture of a pint of turpentine with
two bricks of paraffin dissolved in it. It will not dissolve cold, but
if your tin can of turpentine is warmed in a kettle of hot water it
will dissolve the paraffin readily. Hang the muslin out to dry after
soaking in the solution.
THE SIDE-OPENING GRUB BAG
The large food bags are to be marked RICE, FLOUR,
SUGAR, OATMEAL; the 9 x 4's, CORN MEAL, PRUNES, COFFEE, PANCAKE FLOUR;
and the small 3 by 6's, TEA, COCOA, SALT, RAISINS. Milk goes in its own
cans of evaporated cream; eggs, in a 3 by 5-inch tin can with friction
top (holds 14 fresh eggs broken into it); potatoes and onions in an
ordinary muslin flour sack; meat, bacon, butter, etc., in 8-inch
friction top tin cans, costing 25 cents each, two will be plenty. All
these provision sacks except the spud sack will go in the side opening
grub bag; will weigh, all told, for a week's cruise, about thirty
pounds and will make about 150 pounds of cooked food. Rain and spray,
upsets and hard knocks will then make no difference to the grub pile;
it is the only way to stow and carry food in a canoe.
The cook kit to be taken along may be any of the
well-known outfits, such as the nesting aluminum set for four, the
Forester, Stopple, Boy Scout, etc., or it may be plain set of nesting
tin pails, three of them one inside the other, a couple of fry pans and
some 7 by 2-inch tin mixing and baking pans. Each man has his
individual table set, of knife, fork, and spoon, cup, and nine-inch tin
or aluminum plate, and you will want a wire grate and a folding
reflector baker or an aluminum one with cover on which a fire can be
built like a Dutch oven. The wire grate should have a cloth bag to pack
in as it gets very sooty and will soon get the rest of the things in
the canoe dirty if uncovered. For a tent there are several special
canoe types on the market, the Hudson Bay, Dan Beard, Canoe Tent, and
Forester being four types that have made good on long canoe trips where
each night a new camp is made. You want something quickly and easily
put up, with a few pegs and few poles.
DAN BEARD OR CAMP-FIRE TENT
THE FORESTER TENT
THE PERFECT
SHELTER TENT
THE CANOE TARP CAMP
Canoe-cruise regulations call for a heavy meal at
breakfast, an all-day paddle with a bite of lunch eaten in the canoe at
midday, and a rousing feed at night. One usually looks out for a good
site and a spring along about four o'clock, as camping and cooking
after dark is a nuisance and takes away the pleasure of the cruise.
Wherefore you want a tent that can be quickly put up, almost anywhere.
The Hudson Bay tent calls for a handy tree and a pair of
shears in front (for it is too much to ask, to expect two trees to grow
just the right distance apart at the right place, with a level bit of
ground in between them!). The Canoe tent needs one short pole and two
long rear stakes; and the Forester, three ten-foot saplings. These are
easy to find in any thicket along a lake or stream bank. All three
tents take eight to ten short pegs, and are put up in ten to fifteen
minutes time. Never pitch on a sloping ground site unless the slope
runs from head to foot of the tent, a side slope is very uncomfortable
to sleep on and the boy furthest uphill will be continually rolling
down on the others in his sleep. One man can put up the tent, while the
others get night wood, water for the cookee and browse for the tent
bottoms.
GETTING BREAKFAST IN THE CANOE TARP
CAMP
The man elected cook sets about preparing the
evening meal. He will need about 45 minutes to do a good job, and will
want good hot woods to do it with, so see that he has plenty of dry,
hard maple, blackjack oak, white oak, pignut hickory and white birch to
do with. The surest way to have a slow meal that is forever cooking, is
to give the cook any old dry trash wood, such as balsam and pine. There
is little heat in them, they are "out" most of the time, and the pot is
forever boiling. But blackjack and maple will not only start the pots
up in no time but their coals will keep them going after the flames
have subsided. Get the boiled things going first, the pots over the
fire amid the flames, and the potatoes and onions peeled into the
''mulligan", a handful of rice added and some salt, and you can put the
cover on and let her simmer.
Add soup meat if you have it, or grouse breasts, chunks of
deer meat, cut up rabbit, any old meat component; add a bouillon cube
for each man when the stew is nearly done, thirty-five minutes later,
and she will taste fine and keep you in good health. Fry your fish
dipped in egg and rolled in corn meal and set some one to tending the
fry pan over a bed of coals while you make up the corn bread batter,
squaw bread dough, or doughgods. These require for a hot high fire a
couple of blazing logs lifted up off the main fire and set on the edge
of the wire grate, and the baking tin is then put under them on top of
some coals, or the reflector baker, with its pan full of biscuits, is
set in front of them. Boil rice in the other pot, and tea in the pail.
For breakfast use your flapjack flour for pancakes, and have coffee,
fish fried in bacon grease with bacon on the side, and potatoes cubed
and creamed. Plenty of these, with lots of fruit, will run you all day
long.
READY TO GO OVERBOARD AGAIN
Aim to get the canoes in the water by eight
o'clock, stop paddling about noon for an hour to serve a cold lunch of
ham or sardines with chocolate, cheese, raisins, nuts, and some Graham
crackers, and be on your way again in an hour. At four the definite
stop for the day is made. Pick a good site, on a point if possible to
get away from flies and mosquitoes, and be sure to pitch somewhere near
a spring. Any river that is inhabited, -- that is, has farms and small
towns on its banks, -- is unsafe to use for drinking or cooking water.
My twelve-year-old boy got a case of typhoid fever from one of our
canoe cruises, where there was but one town on the river bank. The rest
of us were badly physicked and just missed typhoid, but he had a severe
case which nearly cost him his life. Since then I have always insisted
on a spring for water or else boiled it before using. And, by the same
token, refrain from dipping up the river water in a cup and drinking
it, unless the river is wholly wild, like the Allagash in Maine, or the
Lumbee in North Carolina, or Wading River in New Jersey, all of which
streams give fine canoe trips.
In lieu of a sail, a good thing to take along is a tarp
for a floor cloth made of some light waterproof tent textile. If you
have a mast step screwed to several ribs of your canoe, and a
detachable cross bar, with a two-inch hole in it for a mast hole, and
two brass hooks with wing nuts to secure the cross rail to the gunwale,
you can easily cut spars at the lake bank and rig the "tarp" as a sail
when you have a long downwind traverse to make. Without the step and
bar it is rather awkward to rig anything that will stand wind pressure
and not become dangerous from coming adrift and upsetting the canoe in
a gust. In making any traverse, study your weather and white caps
before venturing out, for it is braver to say "No!" and stay ashore
windbound than to be foolhardy and go out and get swamped. If you must
make the traverse and the waves are high, do it with canoe lightly
loaded in two trips, as a logy, heavily loaded canoe is a dangerous
thing in choppy seas.
In river work, haul her over logs, down trees and the like
by getting out on the log, one on each side, and sliding the canoe over
between you with the duffle aboard. In navigating rivers keep cutting
across the heads of bends, the bow man anticipating the river at each
bend and getting the canoe headed for the shallows, when the stern man
can then exert his strength and shove her ahead. Keep out of the full
force of the current in the bends; it only makes you paddle twice as
far and hard, and the force of the current is always throwing your
canoe broadside onto alders and rocks in the elbow of the bends. In
running a rapids, be first sure that they are safe, as they change
almost daily with the height of water. Look for a portage trail if you
know nothing about the rapids and if there is a landing above the
rapids, with a clearly defined trail through the forest, it is a safe
bet that the rapids are dangerous and have been portaged by better men
than you. In running white water the stern man has the say and the bow
man should not embarrass him by attempting to fend off with the paddle,
etc. Only do this when it is clearly evident that the stern man has not
control enough to prevent her ramming. As a rule, the water parting
around a rock will carry her bow clear if the stern man guides her and
sees that the stern follows clear.
In general, back paddle so that the current flows faster
than the canoe is going, and let her down easy at the difficult spots.
In any event, keep out of the main force of the current if there is an
easier passage, and always go along a rapids on foot ashore before
running it. In many rivers and broad creeks there is plenty of white
water not dangerous, only exciting. Follow the current where it is
clearest of rocks, and, in passing one, back the stern of the canoe
away from the rock, letting the current carry the bow clear. In all
rapids running the duffle should be lashed in by your tracking line; in
traversing a lake everything should be free and clear, as you may need
to empty her in a hurry. In both cases stick to the canoe in case of
upset, get her ashore in the rapids, and dump the water out of her in
the lake, letting the duffle float where it will until the canoe is
ready again.
In both cases the paddles should be lashed to the canoe
with about six feet of cotton rope, as they may be your only hold on
the canoe, and if she once drifts away from you in a lake you are lost.
Two men treading water can lift a canoe clear enough to turn out most
of the water, and then can get aboard from bow and stern
simultaneously, being careful to jump at the same moment so as to
balance the weight.
One man alone can hardly empty a canoe unless over sixteen
years of age and husky. If strong enough you can rock it out, or
"shove" it out, either by swashing it from side to side, letting it
slop out, or by giving it smart shoves to and from you, when the
momentum of the water will slop it out over bow and stern alternately.
A boy of twelve is not strong enough to do this and had best get inside
the canoe and lie down in her awash. She will not sink, but will lie
with about an inch of gunwale exposed. Keeping her on an even keel, the
water can be dashed out of her if reasonably calm, but with a sea on
the best way is to go astern and kick her ashore, climbing in and lying
down in her when tired. Sooner or later she will drift ashore. Keep
cool, play safe and do not start anything rash that you may not be able
to finish. The canoe will always float herself and you, and if not too
cold you will arrive safely in time, even if you have a mile or so to
drift.
In river travel the banks are near, and if you stick to
the canoe no eddy can pull you under. As a matter of fact upsets are
extremely infrequent in canoe travel. I have yet to have my first one
in over thirty years of canoeing in river trips, and in my sailing
canoes have but three upsets in all that time to record.
The second great branch of canoeing is that of canoe
sailing in the great open bays and lakes, where the wind is too strong
and the seas too heavy for an open type canoe to live. The
wooden-decked sailing canoe has always been a popular "poor man's
yacht," but for boys she is so heavy to paddle that until you get
sixteen years or over it is too hard work to be fun.
However, we boys did not let that worry us. We built
decked canvas-covered sailing canoes that weighed about forty pounds,
and had two sails, mainsail and jigger, and they could beat anything of
their inches that carried canvas, and live in a sea that sent big
catboats into harbor with three reefs in their sails. These craft I
built four of; my chums two or three apiece, and, for long cruises down
the great saltwater bays of the Atlantic Coast, sleeping in the canoe
every night, they were simply Jim Dandy!
Thirteen feet long by 32 inches beam and a foot deep was
the preferred size, with a six-foot cockpit in which you could sleep
when the canoe was hauled out on the beach and the sand banked up
around her. Contrary to the general impression spread by writers who do
not know, the canvas-covered canoe is not "limp and logy"; instead she
is fast and lively; she will not sink when capsized, but will keep
herself afloat and you, too. And she paddles like a bird with the
double-blade paddle, which the wooden sailing canoe would never do on a
boy's strength.
THE Varmint UNDER FULL SAIL
We cruised in ours for weeks at a time. Sometimes
it would be but a day's expedition up some big salt marsh creek after
railbirds and snipe; other, it would be a fishing trip down the bay to
some favorite bank, where the canoe would be moored to an oyster stake
while its crew attended to the fish market; again it would be an
extended consort cruise of two or more of these canoes, when both of
them would be hauled out on the beach and the cockpit tents set up,
while a board running from one canoe to the other would make the eating
table. Many a night have I dozed off to sleep with the strong salt
breeze strumming through the guy ropes of my canoe cockpit tent, the
mosquitoes humming a lively tune outside, while within there would be
solid comfort from the muslin mattress filled with fragrant sage and
making the round contours of the canoe as comfortable as your bed at
home. I have paddled out into a roaring sea that even a large sloop
would respect, in those able little decked canvas canoes, setting up a
rag of sail and beating to windward like a flying fish, and only once
in hundreds of miles of such canoeing have I been upset.
It was during a squally northwest blow and I was snipe
shooting on Marsh Point on the Raritan. I got thirsty and so set sails
for the opposite shore a mile away where I knew there was a spring of
iron water, highly prized by us boys because we believed that drinking
it would make us strong! As the tide was running out strongly it took
several tacks to make up for the drift in getting across, and in one of
them my rudder jammed. Its regular pin had been lost and it was
therefore hung with a couple of makeshift copper lashings to the screw
eyes. At every other gust the canoe was knocked down to her cockpit
coaming, but that was nothing unusual, -- one simply jammed one's toes
under the lee rail and hiked out over the pickle! But this rudder
jamming was another matter; I couldn't steer now, except with a paddle
blade, which is nix in a decked canoe, as it will not let you hang out
to windward when the gusts come.
Several times I was nearly unbalanced by the knockdown
puffs, and finally one got me and I was pitched bodily overboard to
leeward, taking the canoe with me. I remember leaping headlong into my
own mainsail, and then a smother of salt water. When I came up, the
first thing I noticed was my precious moccasins wavering down through
the water. They had come off my feet while doing the dive into the
mainsail. I dove for them with both eyes open, and got them both by
great good luck. Next I felt inside the canoe for my gun; it was lashed
in securely, thank goodness! Then I loosened both main and mizzen
halyards and unstepped the masts, which released the canoe so I could
right her.
The next stunt was to roll up the two sails and stow them
inboard, and then go swimming after the paddles. I was a great little
retriever, and soon had all the canoe belongings back in the cockpit,
which was awash in the whitecaps. I was half a mile from shore, and so
I went astern and turned myself into a human propeller, so that, helped
by the strong wind and sea, I had soon kicked her where I could touch
bottom and begin to wade with her. A fish hawk had been following me
interestedly, and now he swooped down and flew off with a white package
left behind in my wake. I suddenly realized that that was my package of
lunch he was making off with, with all my sandwiches in it! A frantic
grab for the gun was futile, as he was already out of range -- I owe
that fish hawk a grudge to this day!
However, there were two hard-boiled eggs and a couple of
boiled crabs in the canoe, and so, taking off all my clothes and
spreading them abroad in the marsh, I sat down on the paddles to a
lunch of egg and crab while the clothes dried out. About four o'clock
the snipe came up the marsh in great flocks of fifty or a hundred
apiece and I had some royal shooting. It was too dark to see the gun
sights and the shells all shot before I was ready to go home. Outside
the drawbridge to the open sea, the waves were high, as I could tell by
the big, smooth swells in the river, but she shot through the draw in
great shape under paddle alone and made the two-mile trip in the dark,
open sea without incident, hurdling the big whitecaps like a huntsman.
A great little boat !
I use the mate to her now, and in one of these chapters
will tell you how to build one for yourself at a cost of $7.50,
complete. In paddling against a headwind with such a craft you had best
leave the dandy up, as it not only keeps her head staunch to the wind,
but every side puff fills the dandy and you can just feel her shoving
you along!
DETAILS OF STEM AND STERN CONSTRUCTION Waterat
IV
STEM CONSTRUCTION
Click here
for larger image of stem.
STERN CONSTRUCTION
Click here
for larger image of stern.
In the paddling canoe with sail I have had two upsets in
thirty years, one of which was in a howling southeast gale when we ran
aground on a point and she turned a somersault over her own leeboards;
and the other was in a squally northwest wind when I was navigating a
narrow, crooked lake under sail. While the canoe was ''in stays,'' --
that is, luffing and coming about on another tack -- a sudden gust blew
out of the wall of forest, broadside on, and knocked her over as if you
had struck her with a giant hand!
No amount of seamanship could have avoided this, as the
sail was perfectly loose and free, but a broadside gust from an
entirely different point of the compass from that in which the wind is
blowing is likely to hit you unexpectedly in narrow waters surrounded
by high banks of forest, and so it is always much safer to use paddle
only in such places. As to the other upset, the leeboards were straight
down, and you should always avoid a point likely to have a shoal on it
when tacking in a high wind for, if she strikes bottom with the
leeboards, you will have the ignominy of upsetting in a foot and a half
of water!
As to rigs for canoes, I have tried them all;
leg-o'-mutton, batwing, lateen, and Canadian Club or battened
leg-o'-mutton; and have settled on the latter for all my later canoes.
Leg-o'-mutton is a slow sail, because of its bad leach, and its spars
are so long as to be unstowable in a canoe with six-foot cockpit.
Batwing is too complicated a sail for most men to make, and easily gets
out of gear. Lateen has not only too long spars, but is unreefable, and
is a dangerous sail before the wind in a heavy blow.
THE Waterat IV WITH SAILS AND
COCKPIT TENT
The Canadian Club, shown in our illustrations, has
comparatively short spars, a good flat leach, and is easy to reef and
stow. The dimensions given are right for a twelve-foot canoe, a larger
sail can be carried, but you will have to reef it most of the time. A
single set of reef points in mizzen and mainsail gives you canvas for a
heavy blow, while reefing her down to her battens will give you a rag
that you can navigate a gale in, like the time last summer when I
crossed Greenwood Lake in ten minutes in Waterat IV, the
present representative of the canvas-covered decked sailing canoe in
which I navigate. Taken all in all, canoeing is a great sport, and one
that appeals particularly to men and youths who have the adventurous
exploring spirit in them. I have sailed everything from a full-rigged
ship to a canoe, and, to this day I still keep three canoes in my fleet
of pleasure craft, one of which, Waterat IV, is still the
unbeaten crack of this section!
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© 2002 Craig O'Donnell, editor & general factotum.
May not be reproduced without my permission. Go scan your own damn
stuff.
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