remember that canoe?

[cposton]

Something about a canoe. I took the time this afternoon to start working on the Hooter. The boy and his toy. But there is something about working on a canoe... Maybe it is the wholeness of it, the way it can float on the water and not be compromised by currents or waves. Or the way it can skim on the surface yet always be separate from the water that bears its weight. A canoe is master of the water.

Maybe working on a canoe creates a marriage, it molds the canoe to my body. The fitting of the object to myself. Shaving foam and laying floor pads creates a helm and extends my body. In the end it will be so much easier than swimming---warmer, more powerful, and more comfortable.

Maybe it is the adventure it promises. The canoe will capture the sounds of ouzels, and ferrry me into alcoves papered with mosses and dripping maidenhair ferns. I will rise over waves, and splash down rapids. I will pull ashore under huge firs and cedars. It will take me to places most people only see in paintings. People don't see these places in photos because photos are always too flat, and the colors aren't right, no depth.

And maybe the canoe is simply the ownership of an object that has a use and a purpose. A canoe has a utility. It works.

Whatever it is, I find it satisfying to work on a canoe. Especially old canoes. Canoes that were built by hand, not simply punched out by a machine. Old canoes that were once new, and sleek, and sparkled in the sun and sparkled in the eye of a boy who said, wow, I could have fun in something like that----and did. Once.

Then the canoe became yesterday, or next week, but not today because today there was something else more important. Next week became next month, and by then the canoe became dusty, and out back, or underneath the porch, or behind the garage because it was simply in the way where it used to be. Then the canoe became old. That old canoe with the peeling paint, or the seat busted out, and maybe it now leaks, or it does leak and that makes the canoe no longer a canoe, just something overlooked and forgotten. Old. Maybe put some dirt and flowers in it and call it a planter.

I like old canoes that have a history, even if I don't know the history, because when I look at an old canoe I imagine where it has been. I imagine fish flopping in the bottom of the canoe, and sunny days, and osprey chirping, and sliding between the cattails, and people smiling after they finished a great journey over the water.

I once fixed a canoe with 17 holes in it. The holes were all covered with duct tape. They were easy to find. It was only an average canoe. But there were lots of adventures in that canoe

I worked on the Hooter today. It is not an average canoe. I cut the seat out and peeled the glue off the inside of the hull. Tomorrow I will sand the gunwales and put a couple coats of oil on the wood. As I work I can feel the beauty in the curving lines, the speed in the prow. Occassionally I thump the hull with my knuckles and listen to the ressuring boom that tells me the hull is tight and whole. No rattles or holes in this old canoe. It is ready to skim the water and carry me over waves to grottos lined with mosses and dripping maidenhair ferns. We will go there together.

Thank you, Kaz, where ever you might be. Thank you for building this canoe by hand 20 years ago. I found the card announcing its birth on the inside the hull. It is a special canoe.

[milkman]

Apparently there's a lot of life and poetry in an old canoe. Thanks for your post!

[ian123]

We need some rain.

[Big Al]

Please send some of that good Oregonian smoke this way East.



Big Al

[ezwater]

"Maybe working on a canoe creates a marriage..."

Stay away from Hooters or you may end up single again....

[Sir Adam]

A few years ago I picked up an old wood strip marathon boat. Supposedly only needed new gunnels...first paddle after said work water was appearing through the hull.... I SHOULD have passed it on. BUT, the builder had put their name on it, and it was an old wood boat... so I stripped off all the fiberglass (polyester resin did make it a bit easier... but was also a reason for some of the delimitation) and sanded it down. I kind of felt bad for the original builder - what had once been a fairly straight hull most likely had dips and valleys in it. I sanded them out (long board) as much as I could, but there was only so much hull to work with. Then epoxy and S Glass, and a bit of varnish.

It is much lighter than it was actually, much stiffer, and doesn't seep water:). You can still see the bits of the hull that are still water-stained (grey), and in reality I should probably re do the interior now. But it is functional as is and I enjoy it.

So I'll agree working on special boats is special, and on non-mass produced boats you can see the care someone took to build them.

I have a few Millbrooks too (John Berry boats) which for the most part are amazingly solid... especially compared to some of the other boats from the same period I've had at times....

[craig]

Love that post! from a canoeist that has fixed 17 holes in my own Hooter. They were all small and easy to fix. I had another for a while but my wife didn't like the idea of me going out to the garage to mess around with the Hooters

[gumpy]

Please send some of that good Oregonian smoke this way East.



Big Al