How did you learn?

[MichaelMerry]

My dad was a skilled canoe paddler and water reader, as was my grandpa. I can’t remember a day when I wasn’t paddling down (and up!) rivers. This included plenty of nighttime frog hunting forays. One day, when I was very young (maybe 7), dad turned me around in the bow of the canoe and he sat facing me in the stern. We were in some swampy backwaters. He had me practicing and perfecting many canoe strokes that we then translated to the river.

Eventually, I started paddling kayaks around as well, particularly sea kayaks on big bodies of water. I think that helped my endurance; not so much my skill.

When I was about 30, my dad pronounced my skills had surpassed his. I don’t think that’s true. I may have gotten a bit bigger and stronger than him, but I never met anyone that could read a river and choose a route like he could. Miss that guy.

 

[Patrick Corry]

"Basic River Canoeing" by Robert McNair was the early 70s bible in my world.

Me too! The author, Bob McNair would give in-person lectures with a flannel draped easel, to which he could stick flannel patches in the shape of canoes, rocks, downstream & upstream "vees", etc. thereby illustrating the techniques of white water paddling. The lessons learned formed the basis of my paddling style back then and still today. I have never paddled with anyone else who learned from a different source. Since my boyhood my paddling has been solo for the most part.

The AMC white water handbook as well.

 

[TomP]

Me too! The author, Bob McNair would give in-person lectures with a flannel draped easel, to which he could stick flannel patches in the shape of canoes, rocks, downstream & upstream "vees", etc. thereby illustrating the techniques of white water paddling.

O Man, you just triggered some memories about the flannel easel. One of our members in the CT AMC introduced that device for the clinics that we would run. We used that for years. I suppose the modern version is the white board and erasable markers.

I also recall that photo on the cover of the AMC book, that's a classic C-2 there. Any idea where the photo was taken? New Hampshire? Pemi?

My books left my possession years ago, so thanks for the pics and the memories.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

The AMC white water handbook as well.

I also recall that photo on the cover of the AMC book, that's a classic C-2 there. Any idea where the photo was taken? New Hampshire? Pemi?

My books left my possession years ago, so thanks for the pics and the memories.

I have quite a library of canoe books from the 60's, 70's and 80's, including a couple I got from TomP's father when we were all in the CT AMC together for many years in the 80's and 90's. Here is my copy of the AMC White Water Handbook, which says it's First Edition, Ninth Printing (1976).



On the back cover, it says that the book was first printed in 1965 and more than 90,000 copies had been sold since then. It also says the cover picture is of the Swift River in New Hampshire. I assume the cover picture may have changed over the different printings.

 

[MyKneesHurt]

I bumped through plenty of day trips with plastic paddles and royalex boats when I was a kid, but I didn't really start learning how to control a canoe until I started learning about birchbark canoes and trying to mimic those in skin-on-frames. I stumbled in to a freestyle symposium at Paul Smith College a few years ago, where I saw some really skilled paddlers, and that got me moving. The more I learn about indigenous diasporas and bushcraft, and the cultural role of canoes*, the more I'm interested in being a part of that trajectory.

*I would never say it on this website, but kayaks are also really cool.

 

[kootenay]

I am fascinated, I've paddled a good while now. I like how people measure some of these things the thousand hours was interesting, that is a lotta days.
I gotta figure at this point I paddled 20,000 km, hundreds nights camping I guess. But the fascination! I have not met any paddling community I haven't but seen the fewest of people in all the rivers literally I have more fingers. I'm old enough now learning the computer or whatever I'm doing, this social media, the YouTube. It takes a little more computer skills than you'd think to get this far, so I hope this shows up. Then I need figure how to interact, search and stuff on this site cuz I'd like to pick some brains planning wise (that's how I found this place I just threw out a Google on a Hay River to Kugluktuk question).
Oh the question I had to teach myself there's not much other way where I live.
Hope this works

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Hope this works

It worked, kootenay.

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[Shane V]

Aluminum canoes as a kid. Peach and Rug... The Complete Wilderness Paddler by James West Davidson and John Rugge. Great humor and information that. Along with Sierra Club whitewater trips and an old couple we met at the Willow River in Pukaskwa. After getting married we bought a canoe (Sawyer) with the express purpose of getting down the coast of Pukaskwa. Our years of efforts to bushwack and backpack a largely unflagged unmarked trail were not advancing as planned. A mile a day was good. So for a couple years we constantly went canoed out in the biggest warm water lakes we could find. In the windiest waviest worst weather.