Peeing in one’s canoeing shorts

Just happened to come across this. I was amused.

Dear Miss Manners: I go canoeing with several other retirees. One member of our group has a habit of squatting in the river to urinate instead of going behind a bush and dropping her drawers.

I don’t think she should assume that it is OK to ride in others’ cars in her peed-in shorts at the end of the day. She maintains that when she gets in the water, the river washes her shorts “as well as your washing machine.”
Do you have any thoughts on this?
Only that Miss Manners will be taking the bus home, thank you.

Thats weird. Maybe take her canoeing just after ice out and see if she adapts to a more civilized method.

Miss Manners, wouldn’t be riding in my vehicle. She thinks its ok to pee like that and I think it’s ok that she walks to wherever.

Wait until you hear how people warm up their wetsuits.

One time I paddled right past a drunk college girl in a bikini that was using that technique. If she had needed a ride I think I might have helped her.

I was told while I was shopping for a second hand wetsuit years ago there are only two types of people. People who pee in their wetsuit and people who lie about peeing in their wetsuit.

gumpus said:

One time I paddled right past a drunk college girl in a bikini that was using that technique. If she had needed a ride I think I might have helped her.

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I hope you were back paddling, I think I would have been.

Perhaps she was a urophiliac who was hoping someone would consolidate Pierre Berton's famous quotation with her, and finally make her a true Canadian.

During the Yukon River races, i several times paddled bow position in voyageur canoes with 3-4 ladies on my team. A first mandatory rest stop on the YRQ occurs after about 20 hours of continuous paddling. The next stop after that is even farther down river. We don't land or stop paddling just to pee. The guys of course have no trouble using "wide mouth" empty gator aid or old Nalgene bottles, suitably labeled. The gals, on the other hand, attempted to use various commercial contraptions made for the purpose, often with limited success. I always was given a caution to not turn around during the process. At the first rest stop where pit crews could assist paddlers exiting their canoes, they knew to wear gloves and use sanitizers to clean out the interior of team canoes.

Peeing in the the water is recommended or even required on some western desert rivers.

“Dilution is the solution to pollution.”

Glenn MacGrady said:

Peeing in the the water is recommended or even required on some western desert rivers.

“Dilution is the solution to pollution.”

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Right, as is currently advised by LNT

You are not considered a true Alaskan Sourdough if you haven’t over wintered in the great land, shot a Grizzly bear, slept with an Eskimo and pissed in the Yukon. There may be something else about a quart of whiskey at one sitting.
Snow birds need not apply!!

Don't forget to include a slug of Yukon Jack with the "toe"

“Dilution is the solution to pollution.”

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I took some white water training on the French River. IN one weekend, there were more people camped in my immediate vicinity then there were living in my town. Over the course of the first night, I saw dozens of people leaking it in the river, the same river we were filtering our water from. I'd much rather they went back in the bush and watered the poison ivy.

I had a similar situation with a canoe partner. We had limited good water access on our second night out and just after we made camp he decides you take a leak into the lake right where we are fetching our drinking water from. I informed him this was very poor form and that I would appreciate if he just watered the bushes next time.

He proceeded to give me a lecture on exactly how much urine would be concentrated in the water after 5 or 10 minutes and that I was being needlessly fussy.

You can guess how much sympathy I had for him a few days later when we are packing up camp and he keeps having to run into the bushes and heave his guts out. Our best guess as to what happened with him was mild e. coli poisoning. Mild because it was most likely his own e. coli that managed to contaminate his cheese. It definitely made for a pretty miserable day for him!

Caribou hunting up the Ivashak river with a group of friends once; during a break in the action 4 of us were in camp at the same time. My very good friend Dale and his adult son were quietly setting on the river bank having a bit of quiet, reflective father son time, which i noticed. They had a little water filter out and were “making water” while talking. Well; the social predator in me kicked in and i told the young city boy who was with me to fill that empty soda bottle he’d been kicking around like a soccer ball, with water. I took a pocket knife and augured a hole in the lid so we had a skookum squirt bottle now, then i told him to go upstream a few feet of Dale and pull the water bottle out from under his coat and give it a big squeeze like he was peeing in the river. I told him i’d get down from them a ways and “record the action”.
I still have that picture and view it fondly, especially now that Dale has passed.
All of us were trying to impart some wood’s sense into this kid along the way, without much success so it all played out well. We all worked for an Oil Major on the slope at the time. Dale’s gone now, the kid lost that job after discovering some drug he liked better than his job and i’m a retired has been with a shoe box full of old pictures and a lot of fond memories!

I’m sorry if it rankles any feathers but i pee where ever i am when i have to pee! Much like the piss ant’s and the Grizzly bears or the gophers or the Caribou.

Glenn MacGrady said:

Peeing in the the water is recommended or even required on some western desert rivers.

“Dilution is the solution to pollution.”

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I’ll make a note to always pee in the water. I remember peeing in a public pool once. The lifeguard suddenly freaked out on me. Startled me so much that I almost fell in.

Big deal.
Life in the Bush has nothing to do with city manners.
Do what works for you. I have had tough as nails lady field crew members squat and piss while having a conversation with me.
Those are the kind that are hard to find. Good with a chainsaw. Complain much less than the men.

In moving water pissing is of little concern.

PaddlingPitt said:

Just happened to come across this. I was amused.

Dear Miss Manners: I go canoeing with several other retirees. One member of our group has a habit of squatting in the river to urinate instead of going behind a bush and dropping her drawers.

I don’t think she should assume that it is OK to ride in others’ cars in her peed-in shorts at the end of the day. She maintains that when she gets in the water, the river washes her shorts “as well as your washing machine.”
Do you have any thoughts on this?
Only that Miss Manners will be taking the bus home, thank you.

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I'd say the lady in question is seeking more privacy peeing to avoid the pervs in her group watching her pee.
I'd also say her shorts et cetera are probably cleaner than yours.

Peeing in a river seems like it would dilute a lot faster than in the shore of a lake. Just make sure you filter upstream of the streams. Actually, I never scoop up drinking water from near the shore when canoeing. I always go out a ways into the deeper currents of a river or depths of a lake. Too much slack water, land detritus, and live and dead bugs near the shore.