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I decided not to buy the five-horsepower outboard motor for my canoe, thanks to Paul. As we sat at Bah’s Bake House on Sunday, ogling the early morning harbor, he explained boating perfection: a canoe, the paddle, and nothing involving internal combustion engines. Why mess with perfection?
Paul was accustomed to going to sea on vessels whose engine horsepower was measured in the tens of thousands. My talk of the five-horsepower outboard was a red flag, a slippery slope. He pointed out how much more pleasure he derives in the torque of a well-wrought wooden paddle single-handedly plying the waves, even against the tide.
I renewed my vow never to own a boat that I cannot lift onto the roof of my car, or that will indenture me to its maintenance. Local examples abound of people mortgaged in a myriad of ways to their large boats that cry out for constant use and constant upkeep. No thank you. It’s enough just getting the living room vacuumed and the laundry sorted for a family of five.
Yet Paul doesn’t even need to put his canoe on top of the car. He loads it on a two-wheeled garden cart and walks it down Main Street to the town landing. No petrochemicals involved. Fuel: a few blueberry muffins. To Paul’s way of thinking, just paddling from the town dock to the yacht club dock and back is a quality journey.
The seduction of going farther, faster had spurred my motor envy. On the big lakes up north, I reasoned, with the canoe stuffed to the gunwales with tent, stove, sleeping bags, and large dog, we would extend our reach by moving at six or seven miles per hour rather than one or two—to say nothing
of exertion.
“But why even go to the big lakes?” said Paul. “You know that marshy area up toward Hatch’s Cove? There’s nothing like drifting in there and just sitting. Or paddle over to Ram Island and get mussels off of the shoals. That’s all you need.”
He could back it up with an amortization of motor purchase price over time, given frequency of three hour drives to the big lake, cost of oil and gas for car and outboard, etc. Why work so hard to make the money to buy the engine to get there faster and miss all that there was to see along the way? It’s the quality of the journey, after all. The Thoreauvian arguments held sway.
There’s also plenty of deterrent in even a brief perusal of the boat section of Uncle Henry’s. The motorboat ads dilute the purity of boating: too much money, too much fuss, too many numbers and figures involved in getting to know your boat. And no lineage. They are all too far out on the lateral branches of the boating family tree. Why not stick with the original, close to the boating heartwood?
Writer John McPhee proves my point: With a few simple adaptations the canoe serves all purposes. “A canoe with a curving, rocker bottom could turn with quick response in white water. A canoe with a narrow bow and stern and a somewhat V-sided straight bottom could hold its course across a strong lake wind. A canoe with a narrow beam moved faster than any other and was therefore the choice for war.” (Survival of the Bark Canoe)
My canoe is narrow in the beam and bow with a bottom responsive in white water, and holds a straight course if I have a good bowman—and my dog, Gus, will sit still when we paddle near ducks. It is a Penobscot, a name redolent of old bark canoe designs. A Penobscot Indian of 1750 would see my canoe and know what it is, what it was designed to do, how to paddle it. And he would see no need to peruse Uncle Henry’s for anything better. This is the ultimate.
A canoe is a perfectly proportioned shape, and a feeling as right as a sonnet. There is an octave of sounds: water lapping at the bow; the suctioning water funnel after a strong paddle stroke; pounding of the bow leaping the crest of a rolling wave and landing in the trough; drumming of the paddle on the gunwale as I reach ahead to pull the craft forward; marsh grass teasing the bottom on the way to Hatch’s Cove; and the sound of nothing but the canoeist’s own breathing when the lake or pond is glassy still.
I only realized days later how economical Paul’s approach had been. He saw the impending disaster like a rock in the current and moved quickly to steer me around it. I’d love to have him in the bow the next time we float with the tide from the town dock down to the cove and back, or venture to Ram Island for mussels, a round-trip voyage that will pass many a bodacious mistress moored in the harbor, sapping the resources of people who began with a canoe atop their car. I’ve learned that first love can also be true love.
Paul was accustomed to going to sea on vessels whose engine horsepower was measured in the tens of thousands. My talk of the five-horsepower outboard was a red flag, a slippery slope. He pointed out how much more pleasure he derives in the torque of a well-wrought wooden paddle single-handedly plying the waves, even against the tide.
I renewed my vow never to own a boat that I cannot lift onto the roof of my car, or that will indenture me to its maintenance. Local examples abound of people mortgaged in a myriad of ways to their large boats that cry out for constant use and constant upkeep. No thank you. It’s enough just getting the living room vacuumed and the laundry sorted for a family of five.
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Yet Paul doesn’t even need to put his canoe on top of the car. He loads it on a two-wheeled garden cart and walks it down Main Street to the town landing. No petrochemicals involved. Fuel: a few blueberry muffins. To Paul’s way of thinking, just paddling from the town dock to the yacht club dock and back is a quality journey.
The seduction of going farther, faster had spurred my motor envy. On the big lakes up north, I reasoned, with the canoe stuffed to the gunwales with tent, stove, sleeping bags, and large dog, we would extend our reach by moving at six or seven miles per hour rather than one or two—to say nothing
of exertion.
“But why even go to the big lakes?” said Paul. “You know that marshy area up toward Hatch’s Cove? There’s nothing like drifting in there and just sitting. Or paddle over to Ram Island and get mussels off of the shoals. That’s all you need.”
He could back it up with an amortization of motor purchase price over time, given frequency of three hour drives to the big lake, cost of oil and gas for car and outboard, etc. Why work so hard to make the money to buy the engine to get there faster and miss all that there was to see along the way? It’s the quality of the journey, after all. The Thoreauvian arguments held sway.
There’s also plenty of deterrent in even a brief perusal of the boat section of Uncle Henry’s. The motorboat ads dilute the purity of boating: too much money, too much fuss, too many numbers and figures involved in getting to know your boat. And no lineage. They are all too far out on the lateral branches of the boating family tree. Why not stick with the original, close to the boating heartwood?
Writer John McPhee proves my point: With a few simple adaptations the canoe serves all purposes. “A canoe with a curving, rocker bottom could turn with quick response in white water. A canoe with a narrow bow and stern and a somewhat V-sided straight bottom could hold its course across a strong lake wind. A canoe with a narrow beam moved faster than any other and was therefore the choice for war.” (Survival of the Bark Canoe)
My canoe is narrow in the beam and bow with a bottom responsive in white water, and holds a straight course if I have a good bowman—and my dog, Gus, will sit still when we paddle near ducks. It is a Penobscot, a name redolent of old bark canoe designs. A Penobscot Indian of 1750 would see my canoe and know what it is, what it was designed to do, how to paddle it. And he would see no need to peruse Uncle Henry’s for anything better. This is the ultimate.
A canoe is a perfectly proportioned shape, and a feeling as right as a sonnet. There is an octave of sounds: water lapping at the bow; the suctioning water funnel after a strong paddle stroke; pounding of the bow leaping the crest of a rolling wave and landing in the trough; drumming of the paddle on the gunwale as I reach ahead to pull the craft forward; marsh grass teasing the bottom on the way to Hatch’s Cove; and the sound of nothing but the canoeist’s own breathing when the lake or pond is glassy still.
I only realized days later how economical Paul’s approach had been. He saw the impending disaster like a rock in the current and moved quickly to steer me around it. I’d love to have him in the bow the next time we float with the tide from the town dock down to the cove and back, or venture to Ram Island for mussels, a round-trip voyage that will pass many a bodacious mistress moored in the harbor, sapping the resources of people who began with a canoe atop their car. I’ve learned that first love can also be true love.
