How I came to buy my canoe

[Allegheny Tom]

You folks are probably the only ones who have not been forced to be bored by the story of how and where I bought my Wenonah Rogue back in the 90s. My wife will tell you that I love to relive this story.
We wanted to buy a royalex boat for river tripping and white water up to class 3. My research narrowed it down to either a Mad River or the Wenonah. Both had the specs I was looking for but I really wanted to test paddle them before I purchased. This was before the internet and finding dealers wasn't as easy as it is now. And finding one that had demo boats was pretty much a dead end.
So I found some dealer phone numbers and intended to make some calls for their input. What I really hoped for was to find a dealer that sold both brands. I figured that dealer would be less biased.
Lo and behold I found one but he was 2,000 miles away in Fort Collins CO. Dan was a nice guy, very helpful and patient answering rookie questions.
He said it was too bad that I wasn't in Colorado because he had both models that we could demo.
It just so happened that we were leaving for CO in a couple weeks to backpack in South San Juan Wilderness. The downside was SSJ is a couple hundred miles from Fort Collins and it was highly unlikely that we could fit in a trip up there. We had plane tix and really didn't have a spare couple days to shop for a boat...bummer.
Fast forward to our back pack trip. We were probably 20 miles from the trailhead, hiking along in solitude. We hadn't seen anyone for days.
Then we saw a couple coming in the opposite direction so we stopped to chat. The man noticed my wife's Osprey pack and asked how she liked it. He'd like to know because he sells Osprey packs in his store in Fort Collins!! I looked at him an asked " Is your name Dan?" He looked at me like..." How do you know my name?"
This was the same guy I'd spoke with several times over the previous weeks! How crazy is that? Remember, we weren't in a high traffic, national park. This was wilderness back country. What a small world.
So I figured this was a sign from above...we needed to make the time to visit Fort Collins.
We did, and we paddled both boats and made our decision. The only problem was that we were flying home and I doubt the boat would fit in the overhead compartment!
Dan said "No problem, I will ship it". I figured the cost to frieght it would be out of our budget. Dan got a price to ship it for less than $150! (That was in the late 90s).
He only asked that we allow him to outfit the boat...knee pads, thigh straps, float bags, D rings, grab loops...the works.
A few weeks later, the boat showed up and everything was done perfectly.
We still own that Rogue and we love it. Lots of great trips and memories.
I think I will be buried in it cause I ain't selling it!

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Very interesting and highly coincidental story, Tom.

So, why don't we treat this thread topic as to how we all came to buy (or make or be given) our first canoe.

I had been canoeing since age 8 until my mid 30's, but always in a family canoe or rented canoe. I never owned one personally, having moved all over the country after age 17 for schools and job transfers.

Then, when I was living in San Jose, California, in 1980, we took a family vacation up to northern California and ended up one day in the beautiful town of Mendocino, which is on the outlet of the beautiful Big River. Right next to our hotel was a canoe rental outfitter. So, one evening my wife and two young kids piled into some sort of tandem canoe. I did all the paddling, and we saw and enjoyed all sorts of wildlife and otters frolicking next to us. It reminded me so much of my youth paddling the family Grumman in Maine.

So, I decided to buy a canoe after we got home from that trip. I first bought a cheap Pelican, which I returned as junk. I then found Western Mountaineering in San Jose, which is still famous for its sleeping bags and down garments, and bought a Royalex Mad River Explorer from Jeff Jones. Which I still have . . . 19 canoes and kayaks later.

 

[MrPoling]

I lived on a lake as a kid, and really wanted one of those cool canoes from the shiny Mad River catalog. I was able to save enough money to buy a used inflatable raft. It was so floppy and short and slow.

One day I managed to paddle it all the way across the lake. While exploring a small cove I found a plywood duck boat submerged in the water. We located the house and asked the owners if they still wanted the duck boat. They looked at me like I was crazy, and then said take it away.

It was probably made from two carefully cut sheets of plywood. It had three planes, just the two sides and the floor. Along the sides were lengths of 2 in black tubing,maybe to help keep out splashes and provide reserves stability. There was a built-in live well in the middle, which was waterproofed more carefully than the sides.

A wide variety of materials were used to try and stop the leaks between the floor and the sides. But it floated, at least if bailed often. Compared to an inflatable raft it was stiff and quick.

Occasionally northern water snakes rested in the livewell, on one occasion riding out on the lake before being discovered.

It wasn't much, but it got me on the water.

 

[Nick Pending]

I'd be surprised if I haven't told this story already here on the site somewhere.

I was living in Chicago and going to college about 300 miles away in the early 1970s when I bit the bullet. A few years earlier, 1965, I'd done a church canoe trip where a couple of the preachers of the Rock River Conference of the Methodist Church did a youth outreach camping thing every summer, each one of them taking a group out for an essentially two week trip into the Quetico Wilderness. We'd meet in Ely Minnesota and then get a 10-12 day trip on the water up into the park and back and then drive home again from there, parents of the kids carpooling to provide the transportation. Those trips, because they had to be non-profit as required by the church, were ridiculously inexpensive, about $60 a person not including the transportation up to Ely and back home. All food and most of the camping gear, all boats and paddles and life jackets, were provided. We had to bring basic clothes, a sleeping bag, toiletries and such, that was all. I had a blast. I'd been in a canoe in boy scout camp before this, but that was just messing around, and I didn't have a lot of fun in scouts. The long trips were great. I did a couple more with the church, and borrowed or rented for a couple other trips, then decided to get my own canoe to make it easier.

Senior year in college I was home on 1970 Christmas break. I'd researched boats (this is way pre-internet!) and decided I wanted one of those built by Ralph Frese at the Chicagoland Canoe base here in town. I drove down and ordered one, a 17-foot, 3-inch model of his Canadienne line. I had the money so even paid for it at the time, $415. They were built to order, and I told him I'd come by after school was out, pick it up, and head for Canada and a month's or so worth of paddlin'. He said okay.

Fast forward to June '71. I drove down to the factory (it was a really tiny place actually, a quarter of a city block), and . . . no canoe. It wasn't done yet. It hadn't even been started yet! I pitched a bit of a complaint, and Ralph started whining back that he was behind, his best worker had quit a week or so back, and he was shorthanded, . . . and, so I asked him for a job. Heck, I couldn't go canoeing, right? Here's an opportunity to learn more about them. My degree was secondary education, and I really had no desire to teach anyway. I always considered it a fallback possibility if nothing else more interesting cropped up. This gave me reason to delay facing a classroom for a bit longer. I ended up building my own darned boat! I did get to take a month and a half off later, August into September that year, and got to use it then, only part of which was in Quetico. I did end up working for Ralph for about 4 years before moving on (and never taught!).

I still have the boat, but it's now a planter in the back yard growing strawberries (Tristars, for those who have to know! <G>).

 

[snapper]

My first canoe was a beat up, 15' aluminum rental from Bob Lander's campground along the Delaware River in Narrowsburg, NY. I'd saved my funds for a long time to be able to plunk down the $125.00. It was 1968 so, in keeping with the times, my sister painted the hull forest green and then adorned it with a variety of painted flowers and floral designs. Very hippy-ish. I kept that canoe for 10 years before selling it for $100.00. At $2.50 per year for usage, I've always felt like I got my money's worth with that canoe. While I moved on to my first We-no-Nah (a Jensen 17) from that canoe, that old aluminum beater still has a special place in my memory bank.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time....be well.

snapper

 

[jdeerfoot]

How it all started… Got out of the navy in 1970 with a couple of $grand in my pocket. So I bought a used VW Microbus and a new Sears aluminum 17’ canoe because my sister worked there and I used her employee 15% discount. I would have preferred a Grumman but the 17’ Standard was $210 and the Sears was $150 with the discount and $60 bucks was a lot of money in 1970. I enjoyed canoeing/boating in the scouts and was finally in a position to get a boat so I did.

Since then I have had 2 new Old Towns - a Tripper in 1983 and OT Penobscot RX in 2020 or so. These canoes I bought with the employee discount through SC Johnson (parent company of Johnson Outdoors) employees (my friends and neighbors) for the 30% discount. In 2006 I bought a new kevlar Wenonah Escape (when I sold my well used but too heavy Tripper) which I still have along with a nice used Wenonah Wilderness solo in T-formex. So I like canoeing a lot but I really don’t like paying full price.

 

[Steve in Idaho]

Not much of a story, really. You wouldn't know it by looking at Cl or Market place these days, but twenty years ago there weren't any real canoes for sale on the used market anywhere near here. People moving here from other states and thinking there's no canoeable (is that a word?) water around here have changed that dramatically, and I, being of the mindset that they deserve no correction from me, am happy to upgrade at their loss - but I digress...

Having finally reached a point in my career that I wasn't moving around the country and having to work too much, I finally decided I needed to get back to doing more fishing. After briefly considering building another SOF kayak like the one I did in the early seventies (I still have the plans), I came somewhat to my senses and realized a canoe would be better.

I had just enough experience in a borrowed Coleman to know that would never do, but with the dearth of better options and after a long search, I grabbed the first halfway decent boat I could find - a Navarro Legacy that was for sale in the next state over.

It just so happened that the owner was moving to Colorado IIRC and would be passing through my town, so we arranged to meet just off the interstate and I traded $250 for the canoe. Well, it wasn't much of a canoe, but it was in nice shape and it was enough to hook me. The irony though is that it didn't help me fish more - it caused me to fish less. Paddling and especially poling became my favorite pass time, and fishing became much less important. Now that I'm retired, thankfully, I have time to do both.

 

[MyKneesHurt]

These kind of threads are one of my favorite parts of this website.
I never owned a canoe until maybe ten years ago, when I tried to build myself a platt monfort skin-on-frame design. It was awful. I didn't trust the tiny dimensions of the gunwales the plans called for, and so I overbuilt it and then it didn't look very canoe-ish. First and last boat I built from plans. I took it to my cousin's farm pond to try it for the first time, and immediately tipped it and came up sputtering with their whole family watching from the bank. I will never live that memory down, no matter how much better my boats are these days. They've got a nine-year-old kid who reminds me every time I go over there for dinner.

 

[Nick Pending]

immediately tipped it and came up sputtering with their whole family watching from the bank. I will never live that memory down, no matter how much better my boats are these days. They've got a nine-year-old kid who reminds me every time I go over there for dinner.

Knees, there are two kinds of paddlers. Those who have swam already, and those who are going to. It's easy, I've done it a hundred times.

 

[stevet]

Interesting topic…I confess to not remembering where I bought my first canoe (OT Penobscot) or what I paid for it, only that the purchase was precipitated by a realization that putting packs in the canoe and going downhill was much easier than my previous avocation of putting them on my back and going uphill.

 

[Robin]

In 1972, my wife and I were camped at a nice drive in campsite at the Twin Islands Campgrounds in Roscoe NY, our site fronted on the beautiful Beaverkill River. Unfortunately, our neighbors were pretty rough and the weekend was anything but enjoyable. While fishing the river, I watched two canoes pass by. Both canoes were nicely loaded with camping gear.
I told my friend about our experience camping next to rowdies and then seeing the loaded canoes, and how much I envied those folks. He worked for Grumman in Bethpage, Long Island and told me he could get a brand new “second” for cheap there. So that was our first canoe, 17’ lightweight, our first trip was on the upper Delaware River. We had a lot of fun with it, fishing and paddling out on eastern Long Island.
Carmans River, LI, NY 1972

 

[clemency]

Have loved the simplicity and lines of a canoe since I went to canoe camp as a kid, but never owned a boat. Always had one at our lake place, and would paddle every day when there. When I met my second wife we lived 200 miles apart, and could only see each other on weekends. Bought an OT Guide for $400 on a whim so we could go on "dates", and we still do, though now in a much nicer (and lighter) boat.

 

[Black_Fly]

Crazy how small the world is sometimes. I once met a cousin of my wife, who worked with her grandfather, inside an outfitter tent in elk camp in Wyoming!

 

[Erica]

And I once met a fellow graduate student while backpacking in the back country of Yellowstone. Neither of us knew of the other’s plans. This would have been 50 years ago.

 

[stripperguy]

OK, far from my first canoe, but this is the story of my first solo canoe.

I had always lusted for a Sawyer DY Special, but didn't think a solo boat was practical...my kids were still fairly young and MDB and I had always paddled tandem boats that I built.
Then, on a whim, I bought a used kayak for My Darling Bride, surprising her with it for Valentines Day. Little did I know how much she would enjoy paddling solo!
This left me in a quandary, not having a solo canoe of my own.
I decided that it was an ideal time to build a DY Special, but where or how to get plans??
I sent an email to Bell Canoes, asking if DY was still working for them, and could they provide me his contact number?
I received a phone call (yup, pre smart phones) from Bell, explaining that Dave was not an employee there, but they would gladly forward my phone number.
A week or two went by, and I assumed nothing would come of this, and surprise, surprise, surprise I get a call from Davis Yost!.
We chatted on the line for over an hour, he told the backstory of how the DY Special came to be, and I confessed my DY Special lust to him. He said that contractually, he couldn't sell me plans for the DY Special, but... nothing in his contract prevented him from giving away some plans.
He went on to explain how the sheer line was always challenging for gunnel attachment on the production boats, and since I would be strip building, he would alter the plans to make them more strip build friendly.
He then told me that he was in the process of moving to a new house on Canadice Lake (IIRC), and both current and future houses were a mess, but he would rummage around and find the plans, alter them, and send them to me.
True to his word, about a month later, a big envelope arrived in the mail. Inside were the custom altered sections, hand drawn in pencil, for that beautiful DY Special, along with some notes and wishes for good luck.
Of course I set right to building that hull. That thing was a rocket ship, and exceedingly pretty. 32 lbs.
I did eventually meander away from that sort of hull, but we had some sweet times together.