Writer Looking for Canoe Info/Stories

Hi Everyone,

This is probably an unusual introduction, as I’m not someone who’s out in a canoe very often! I looked for a better place to post this than Introductions, but didn’t find one (Admins, feel free to move it if needed).

My name is Chris, and I live on Vancouver Island in BC, Canada. I’m writing a fantasy novel set in a world very similar to the Pacific Northwest, focused on a river delta with many distributaries and lakes. The key detail is that people in this world primarily travel by canoe—it’s their main mode of transportation.

I’m hoping members of this forum might have relevant experiences I could incorporate into the book. I want to avoid writing anything that makes seasoned canoeists roll their eyes and think, "That’s not how it works!" I also want to capture the feel of certain experiences: what goes through your mind, what physical sensations you have, and so on. If this sounds interesting, and you enjoy reading fantasy, I’d be thrilled if anyone would be willing to read some canoe-focused chapters and offer advice (just the chapters, no need to read the whole book!).

The technology in the novel is typical of most fantasy worlds. No plastic, fibreglass, etc. For the canoes, they’re either birch bark canoes or made from “star tree bark,” which I’ve invented to be incredibly light and durable—kind of a "cheat" to make them closer to modern canoes.

Some specific experiences I’m interested in (help with even one would be great!):

• Popular misconceptions about paddling and traveling by canoe (so I can avoid them).
• What does it feel like to paddle for a very long time? Where do you get sore?
• Important lessons you learned from a mentor about paddling (there’s an apprentice/mentor relationship in the novel).
• What’s it like to have too many people in a small canoe (e.g., three people in a solo canoe)? How do you compensate?
• Emergency situations: capsizing with a weak/injured swimmer and trying to right the canoe and get them back inside safely (when swimming to shore isn’t an option).
• Canoeing in very heavy rain.
• What would you do if a hole is suddenly punched in the hull, and you can’t go ashore right away?
• How hard is it to paddle upstream in a fairly wide, slow-moving river?
• Boarding a canoe quickly (e.g., a life-or-death situation where getting on the water fast is essential).
• What’s it like paddling in a birch bark canoe?
• If you paddle in BC or Washington, what flora/fauna do you commonly encounter that stands out (looks cool, gets in the way, etc.)?

Any experiences or advice would be incredibly helpful! You can reply here (others might build on your comment, which could be great), or email me at chris.dr.leeson@gmail.com if you rather not post publicly. Please use “Canoe Experience” as the subject so I don’t mistake it for spam.

I hope this post isn’t a nuisance to your forum, and I really appreciate any feedback!

I would suggest you look at the Trip Report forums on this site and also at https://www.myccr.com (Canadian site), besides the reports posted on these sites you will also find links to reports that are posted on paddlers own sites.

I agree that the trip reports forums (US and Canada) would be a good place to start reading. Trip reports by paddlingpitt tend to be long and detailed with great insight.

I also think you should spend some time in a canoe. It's great fun and there are so many aspects that just can't be understood unless you experience them. Even with just a few outings will give a lot of insight.

• What does it feel like to paddle for a very long time? Where do you get sore?

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For me it's an overall weariness. Paddling all day usually isn't a sustained hard effort but it's a steady aerobic exercise that will wear you down over the course of a day, especially if you don't stay fueled. It can also get tedious and boring when you need to push on. I tend to feel it in my shoulders. Some people get it in their lower back but I haven't experienced that.

• What’s it like to have too many people in a small canoe (e.g., three people in a solo canoe)? How do you compensate?

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The canoe will ride dangerously low in the water. It will tip easier and it will not ride up and over waves. It will be very slow to react to turning strokes and will be very sluggish overall. You would want to keep the center of gravity as low as possible, keep everyone centered in the canoe, and avoid waves and current.

• Emergency situations: capsizing with a weak/injured swimmer and trying to right the canoe and get them back inside safely (when swimming to shore isn’t an option).

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That's probably not going to have a successful outcome, especially if we're talking about water temps under 60 degrees.
It's incredibly hard to right a capsized canoe, remove the water, and get yourself back aboard. I don't know how you'd get someone else in if they were injured.

If you can get yourself aboard and they can hang on to the canoe you could paddle to shore/shallow water while dragging them. Paddling will be very slow and difficult and they'll soon start to suffer from hypothermia.

Youtube should have plenty of videos of people demonstrating canoe/kayak rescues as well as videos of people capsizing and struggling in real life.

• Canoeing in very heavy rain.

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It's not very fun. You might have to bail the canoe repeatedly if the rain continues and the boat starts to fill with rainwater. Hypothermia is a real possibility in cold weather.

• What would you do if a hole is suddenly punched in the hull, and you can’t go ashore right away?

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Probably die. If it's a slow leak you'd paddle like crazy to shore and stop to bail out the water when necessary. You could try placing packs or anything else in the boat over the crack/hole in an attempt to slow it down. But, realistically, if you're not near shore and it's a large leak then you're probably going to exhaust yourself in the effort, end up in the water, and die from hypothermia.

• How hard is it to paddle upstream in a fairly wide, slow-moving river?

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Easy, no problem. Even easier if you learn to read the water to avoid the current. Paddle up the inside bend of corners and use eddies that form behind rocks and snags to keep from paddling in the main current as much as possible. You can also rest in these eddies which allows you to maintain position without paddling, or paddling very little. The current is usually not as strong close to shore so stick close to it.

It's easy to paddle 3 mph and 4 mph is not very difficult to maintain either. Over 5mph it starts to get a little more difficult for sustained periods. Short bursts to 6mph are pretty easy. Subtract from those speeds the current of the river and you can easily determine the speed you'll be able to paddle upstream.

• Boarding a canoe quickly (e.g., a life-or-death situation where getting on the water fast is essential).

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You can only rush it so much. Smooth and steady is probably the fastest. If you rush too much and loose balance then you capsize and waste time. Use the same motion you always use, just try and do it quicker but still in control.

There is a method of shoving a canoe off shore, straight into the water, and then jumping over the stern at the last second. I looked for a video quick but couldn't find one. It looks cool but I've never tried it.

• If you paddle in BC or Washington, what flora/fauna do you commonly encounter that stands out (looks cool, gets in the way, etc.)?

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Dense shoreline vegetation like willows, alder, and dense brush, is always a nuisance when trying to find a place to land and get ashore. I'd hate to have to deal with devil's club trying to bushwhack my way inland.

• What’s it like paddling in a birch bark canoe?

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Are there birch trees suitable for canoes in the PNW?

If I'm not mistaken many of the traditional native crafts were dugouts although I could certainly be mistaken.

Alan

Alan Gage said:

I agree that the trip reports forums (US and Canada) would be a good place to start reading. Trip reports by paddlingpitt tend to be long and detailed with great insight.

I also think you should spend some time in a canoe. It's great fun and there are so many aspects that just can't be understood unless you experience them. Even with just a few outings will give a lot of insight.



For me it's an overall weariness. Paddling all day usually isn't a sustained hard effort but it's a steady aerobic exercise that will wear you down over the course of a day, especially if you don't stay fueled. It can also get tedious and boring when you need to push on. I tend to feel it in my shoulders. Some people get it in their lower back but I haven't experienced that.



The canoe will ride dangerously low in the water. It will tip easier and it will not ride up and over waves. It will be very slow to react to turning strokes and will be very sluggish overall. You would want to keep the center of gravity as low as possible, keep everyone centered in the canoe, and avoid waves and current.





That's probably not going to have a successful outcome, especially if we're talking about water temps under 60 degrees.
It's incredibly hard to right a capsized canoe, remove the water, and get yourself back aboard. I don't know how you'd get someone else in if they were injured.

If you can get yourself aboard and they can hang on to the canoe you could paddle to shore/shallow water while dragging them. Paddling will be very slow and difficult and they'll soon start to suffer from hypothermia.

Youtube should have plenty of videos of people demonstrating canoe/kayak rescues as well as videos of people capsizing and struggling in real life.



It's not very fun. You might have to bail the canoe repeatedly if the rain continues and the boat starts to fill with rainwater. Hypothermia is a real possibility in cold weather.



Probably die. If it's a slow leak you'd paddle like crazy to shore and stop to bail out the water when necessary. You could try placing packs or anything else in the boat over the crack/hole in an attempt to slow it down. But, realistically, if you're not near shore and it's a large leak then you're probably going to exhaust yourself in the effort, end up in the water, and die from hypothermia.




Easy, no problem. Even easier if you learn to read the water to avoid the current. Paddle up the inside bend of corners and use eddies that form behind rocks and snags to keep from paddling in the main current as much as possible. You can also rest in these eddies which allows you to maintain position without paddling, or paddling very little. The current is usually not as strong close to shore so stick close to it.

It's easy to paddle 3 mph and 4 mph is not very difficult to maintain either. Over 5mph it starts to get a little more difficult for sustained periods. Short bursts to 6mph are pretty easy. Subtract from those speeds the current of the river and you can easily determine the speed you'll be able to paddle upstream.



You can only rush it so much. Smooth and steady is probably the fastest. If you rush too much and loose balance then you capsize and waste time. Use the same motion you always use, just try and do it quicker but still in control.

There is a method of shoving a canoe off shore, straight into the water, and then jumping over the stern at the last second. I looked for a video quick but couldn't find one. It looks cool but I've never tried it.



Dense shoreline vegetation like willows, alder, and dense brush, is always a nuisance when trying to find a place to land and get ashore. I'd hate to have to deal with devil's club trying to bushwhack my way inland.



Are there birch trees suitable for canoes in the PNW?

If I'm not mistaken many of the traditional native crafts were dugouts although I could certainly be mistaken.

Alan

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Thanks Alan! This is all very helpful! I have done some flat water canoeing. I feel like with that experience and google searches I can cover a lot. It's the emergency situations, river stuff, and the longer voyages that I don't think I can experience anytime soon.

I think you are not wrong about the birch trees. I've done a bit of research on bark canoes (they're pretty amazing!). It seems other types of bark were used by Indigenous peoples, but I can't really find any examples of it. What I find about the Indigenous people in BC suggests they used dugout canoes, but I think they would be too heavy for some of the uses in my story...

Probably die... you're probably going to exhaust yourself in the effort, end up in the water, and die from hypothermia.

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Wow, Alan, aren't you just a ray of sunshine!

(He's not wrong though, Chris. If you need to kill off a character [or 5], hypothermia will do the trick nicely as a method of demise that most people wouldn't think of. Extra bonus: It can happen in a variety of climates and the later stages of hypothermia are usually associated with delirium... if you need to make something outrageous happen...)

By all means, check trip reports (wherever you find them), post questions here and, if at all possible, get some personal experience. I'm not sure where you live but finding a wide, slow-moving river & paddling upstream until you're sore would answer two of your questions in one day. Bonuses on that are that you can float back to the put-in and that you could deliberately get out into the current so you'd have a better understanding of the differences. (you'll likely find that going upstream is not as difficult as you thought. Canoes move relatively easily upstream until you stop paddling)

Alan has answered pretty well, you might want to check out the art of canoe poling, it was a standard method of upstream travel by people of the past. There are still a few people practicing it, but in the past it was a standard skill set for wilderness travelers.

Not sure if your storey is post apocalyptic or just a regular fantasy world, but for modern people the thing about extended canoe travel is that our theory of the world quickly falls behind as the days increase. For instance, on day one, the typical wilderness canoeist's brain is still plagued by the daily mundane stench of thought loops associated with living in a modern world. Worries about money, relationships, politics, perceptions of self in relationship to the artificial constructs of modern living - the normal cyclical thoughts that emit from the brain like odour from a pile of dog crap.

By day three, particularly if the conditions are adverse and trying, all of the preoccupations of life back home begin to disappear and are replaced by a much simpler form of living in the moment, where the central concerns of the brain focus on the present. Esoteric topics such as "how much longer to the next portage?" or "when will I eat again" or even more important in a bug strewn h@ll hole, "when will I tempt fate and my buttock cheeks with my next bowel movement?".

For me, this is the biggest impact of an extended wilderness trip; the replacement of unimportant mind garbage with the routine of daily survival. Very refreshing, and highly needed in the world where somebody who has never physically suffered for more than 30 seconds in their bombastic life can suddenly develop a tik tok account and instruct millions of acolytes on the best way to live, usually involving some stupidity like how to tell your compatriot at work not to look at you funny.

There are times when a simplistic thumbs up or tearfully laughing emoji is terribly insufficient. This is one of those times.

My suggestion to the OP is to plan and carry out a research canoe trip. Try to emulate the situations and conditions as well as possible, without the suffering of course. Don't worry too much about the small stuff like exact canoe or gear chosen. You can imagine away the inconvenient stuff and replace it all with the other. Do a little time/dimension slip and put yourself into your story; your plastic canoe is bark, the Goretex is animal skins etc. You're trying to "get into the heads" of your characters, experience what they're living etc.
It's all in your mind, but you know what they say, your mind is a powerful thing. Something else they say; write what you know about.
So go out and get to know it, reimagine it, and don't forget to drop us a trip report. It'll be quite the story.
Just my paltry 2 cents.

memaquay said:

the biggest impact of an extended wilderness trip; the replacement of unimportant mind garbage with the routine of daily survival.

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This is a super useful tidbit! I can put that right into the brain of my protagonist. (it might be a little different for him, since he is always travelling by canoe, but I can mention that he feels this way on the longer voyages).

Odyssey said:

My suggestion to the OP is to plan and carry out a research canoe trip. Try to emulate the situations and conditions as well as possible, without the suffering of course. Don't worry too much about the small stuff like exact canoe or gear chosen. You can imagine away the inconvenient stuff and replace it all with the other. Do a little time/dimension slip and put yourself into your story; your plastic canoe is bark, the Goretex is animal skins etc. You're trying to "get into the heads" of your characters, experience what they're living etc.
It's all in your mind, but you know what they say, your mind is a powerful thing. Something else they say; write what you know about.
So go out and get to know it, reimagine it, and don't forget to drop us a trip report. It'll be quite the story.
Just my paltry 2 cents.

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Totally. I'm trying to bridge the gap until I get there, but I'd love to do just that.

Hey Chris, how about reading a journal written by a trip survivor? Here's a link. All thanks to Allan Jacobs and the Lanouette family.

ChristheWriter said:

This is a super useful tidbit! I can put that right into the brain of my protagonist. (it might be a little different for him, since he is always travelling by canoe, but I can mention that he feels this way on the longer voyages).

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You label this story as "fantasy," which to me implies "magic" appears in it. Doesn't have to of course, possibly just my own SF/Fantasy perceptions taking over. If it's more "action/adventure" just taking place on a fictional world, that would be great. I'm all for realism, "real people, doing real things that normal people do" even if there's some handwavium involved (like faster than light interstellar travel) more than sword and sorcery stuff myself. Others' mileage may vary. That of authors, too.

Alan Gage said:

Are there birch trees suitable for canoes in the PNW?

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There are birch trees across most of Canada and many northern parts of the United States. The first link below has a map and more details. Dugout canoes were typically used on the ocean and other areas where portages weren't common. However, the sturgeon nosed or Kootenay style bark canoes from that area have a very distinctive look as described in the second link and shown below.

ChristheWriter said:

What’s it like paddling in a birch bark canoe?

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The first thing that most people notice when transitioning to a wooden canoe after having paddled plastic or metal ones is that wood tends to flex with the waves which makes them much more quiet and comfortable. Birch bark canoes exhibit the most extreme examples of this behavior. It is another thing that you should experience if you want to write well about it. Good luck,

Benson

One thing I love about canoes in particular (and small boats in general) is how individually customizable they are. On the question about long distance paddling, you'll find that folks have lots of different configurations to meet their specific needs for comfort or accessibility (seat position, paddle style, hull shape, etc.). Looking into the different ways canoeists configure their set up and connecting that to individual characters' traits, would be neat.

Benson Gray said:

There are birch trees across most of Canada and many northern parts of the United States. The first link below has a map and more details. Dugout canoes were typically used on the ocean and other areas where portages weren't common. However, the sturgeon nosed or Kootenay style bark canoes from that area have a very distinctive look as described in the second link and shown below.



The first thing that most people notice when transitioning to a wooden canoe after having paddled plastic or metal ones is that wood tends to flex with the waves which makes them much more quiet and comfortable. Birch bark canoes exhibit the most extreme examples of this behavior. It is another thing that you should experience if you want to write well about it. Good luck,

Benson

Betula papyrifera - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Sturgeon-nosed canoe - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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Whoa! I had not come across the sturgeon nosed canoe yet. That is wild. I find it pretty awe inspiring how indigenous people's made these things. The work and ingenuity involved is crazy.

Thanks for the advice about how a bark canoe feels to paddle. Super useful!

Nick Pending said:

You label this story as "fantasy," which to me implies "magic" appears in it. Doesn't have to of course, possibly just my own SF/Fantasy perceptions taking over. If it's more "action/adventure" just taking place on a fictional world, that would be great. I'm all for realism, "real people, doing real things that normal people do" even if there's some handwavium involved (like faster than light interstellar travel) more than sword and sorcery stuff myself. Others' mileage may vary. That of authors, too.

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It's definitely fantasy which I know is not necessarily everyone's cup of tea. Most of the main characters are "sprites" (kind of like elves). There's monsters, enormous wolves, a magical mask, and trickster spirits. That doesn't mean that "believability" goes out the window though. Everything has to make sense within the internal logic of the story or else the reader won't believe it. Being specific about things also makes better, more compelling writing, so I'm looking for little details to throw in.

ChristheWriter said:

I find it pretty awe inspiring how indigenous people's made these things. The work and ingenuity involved is crazy.

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You may enjoy "The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America" book by Edwin Tappan Adney and Howard Irving Chapelle. This is available from the link below and other sources. The unusual shape of the Beothuk canoes may also interest you as shown below. This design made it easier to bring large fish into the canoe from deep water. "The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of Northern Eurasia" by Harri Luukkanen and William W. Fitzhugh is another good one. This documents that the sturgeon nosed canoes are also found in Eurasia. Have fun,

Benson

​

ChristheWriter said:

Some specific experiences I’m interested in (help with even one would be great!):

• Popular misconceptions about paddling and traveling by canoe (so I can avoid them).

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The most prevalent misconception about canoes is that they are unstable. Canoes aren't unstable - people are. You can send a canoe down some pretty sizeable rapids with no one in it, and it will stay upright. Put that unstable (usually nervous and tense) paddler in it and it can and does tip over on the calmest water - often spitting said paddler out and returning to upright.

Another related misconception is that a canoe must be wide to be stable. Long and skinny is also stable.

ChristheWriter said:

• What does it feel like to paddle for a very long time? Where do you get sore?

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An extended session of kneeling while paddling can make my legs feel stiff for a while after getting out. I often won't realize that's happening until trying to climb out of the boat. If my kneeling position is less than ideal, my feet may go numb after an hour or more.

ChristheWriter said:

• Important lessons you learned from a mentor about paddling (there’s an apprentice/mentor relationship in the novel).

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One can go farther by going slower.

ChristheWriter said:

• What’s it like to have too many people in a small canoe (e.g., three people in a solo canoe)? How do you compensate?

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In the real world, I would compensate by kicking the third person out of the boat. I imagine - in the case of my 15.5'x30" solo canoe - I can imagine that making both of the passengers lay down with their feet under my seat and their torso ahead of me would be doable. If they attempt to move, I'd smack them in the head with my paddle. (Half joking)

ChristheWriter said:

• Emergency situations: capsizing with a weak/injured swimmer and trying to right the canoe and get them back inside safely (when swimming to shore isn’t an option).

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Yeah, no...not gonna happen without help. If there's a second canoe nearby, look up "canoe over canoe rescue". Otherwise, as already mentioned, hope you can get back in and tow the injured to shore.

ChristheWriter said:

• Canoeing in very heavy rain.

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I'm going to be the contrarian here. Unless it's very windy, I actually enjoy paddling in the rain - so long as I'm dressed for it and I didn't forget my bailer. Some of my most memorable days have been in my canoe with rain jacket&pants (or drysuit) and my sou'wester hat, with a steady rain falling. I can't describe it orher than soothing.

OTOH, a heavy cloudburst with big wind has driven me (sometimes literally) to shore more than once. When it's getting hard to see and the wind is pushing you around, it's bugout time.

ChristheWriter said:

• What would you do if a hole is suddenly punched in the hull, and you can’t go ashore right away?

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Depends on where the hole is. On one side? If the canoe is lightly loaded and the wind and water are calm, moving weight to the other side might lift the hole above the water line. If in the bow, moving weight aft might do the same. In the bottom? Have a nice swim.

ChristheWriter said:

• How hard is it to paddle upstream in a fairly wide, slow-moving river?

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This is right in my lane. As stated already, you stay as close as practicable to the bank of the inside bend. Current is weak there and often includes eddys. Even small almost invisible eddys help a lot. When the river bends the other way, you ferry across at an angle to the other side. Might require a sprint.

If going upstream is the main event and we're in a large canoe (16' tandem, for example), the best and easiest way to go is standing with a pole. Typicall about 12', often fashioned from a spruce sapling. You can push off the bottom if shallow enough, off the bank if necessary, and believe it or not you can paddle with it in the deep very similar to a kayak paddle - except you're standing. You really need to experience it to fully appreciate it, but there are some YouTube videos. Also, reference the Lewis&Clark expedition.

ChristheWriter said:

• Boarding a canoe quickly (e.g., a life-or-death situation where getting on the water fast is essential).

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Realize that the canoe is more stable when moving than at rest. I often will have my paddle in hand and holding it across the gunwales ahead of the seat (grasping the rails at the same time) with canoe in just enough water to float, I push off forward as I step into the canoe. It's all one fluid motion....paddle and hands to gunwales to stepping in, pushing off and pulling the other foot in. The inexperienced at this will likely swim the first time it's tried, but it gets easy. Do it right, and you're on the seat and paddling before the canoe has lost its forward momentum. I even do it pushing the boat sideways off the steep bank. If I'm poling (assuming at least a tandem size canoe) I often just step into the canoe and push off with the pole. This is all even easier with a tripping load low in the boat.

ChristheWriter said:

• What’s it like paddling in a birch bark canoe?

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I wish I knew.

ChristheWriter said:

• If you paddle in BC or Washington, what flora/fauna do you commonly encounter that stands out (looks cool, gets in the way, etc.)?

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Again, clueless. But on any river with trees along the bank, low overhanging or fallen trees are not just an obstacle, but can be a deadly hazard that must be avoided. Look up any discussion of river safety for descriptions of sweepers and strainers.

Oh, and you know about blackflies, right?

ChristheWriter said:

Emergency situations: capsizing with a weak/injured swimmer and trying to right the canoe and get them back inside safely (when swimming to shore isn’t an option).

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The best alternative in this situation is if the swimmer has mastered the Capistrano Flip. I have managed to perform this with a light canoe many years ago when I was young, strong, and not injured. The basic concept is to tread water while rolling the canoe over your head and then throwing it in a way that it will land upright so you can swim over and climb back in. None of this is likely to happen if you are weak or injured. The link below has some more details.

Benson

It just occurred to me that it should be mentioned that (I think) most of us here are paddling solo most of the time. So some of our answers (mine about launching quickly, for instance) might be colored heavily by that perspective. Using that example, when I'm paddling with my wife in the bow I hold the boat standing next to my stern seat while she gets in - then I push off as described in my last post. I suppose two athletic and practiced paddlers could do a simultaneous version of my solo launch, but I've never seen that done.