Tell me about your first time.

[BWCA66]

So I've been wondering about this for awhile. What was your first time? How old were you? Was it with a virgin or a slightly used or well used model? Was it a gift or did you have to pay for it? Probably should ask if you had to go it alone or did the tandem thing. Was it the start of a long term relationship, did it last? Have you been faithful to each other or did something better come along?

My story goes like this - I was a teenager and she was a virgin (bright shiny one too) but I did have to put out some cold hard cash. This was the start of a long term relationship (over 40 years now) and we have seen a lot together. I will have to admit though that I have not always been faithful, our tandem partnership has seen me doing some solo plus a variety of models. Many of the others didn't last as long but they seem to be slimmer lighter versions of my first love. She has always been there for me when I wander back, never complaining. Lately though as I get older the younger slimmer, should I dare say lighter ones usually get my attention and time. Guess maybe I was feeling a little guilty so I paid for a little cosmetic surgery and think that at least around the home front she will see a little more of my time.

We are all on the same page right? You do know I am talking about the first time you owned you own canoe...................... Bought my bright shiny 17' 6" aluminum Alumacraft canoe when I was in high school. Don't use her much anymore since she's so heavy and beat up but I got to thinking that on the pond by my house and in the close by Mississippi backwaters she would do just fine with the grandkids. Don't know why but I did give her a "facelift".

It won't let me post pics??

 

[Alan Gage]

Funny.

First canoe I paddled myself was a little 12' fiberglass Dolphin that my dad owned (still does). I didn't paddle much as a kid and being a hardcore fisherman back then I bought my own little fishing boat and brand new 30hp Nissan engine (my first ever bank loan) at 15. It wasn't until my late 20's that I got rid of my fishing boat and bought a Bell Magic. Did a lot of paddling it that Magic and didn't think I'd ever sell it but got rid of her with no regrets last year. Been a lot of one night stands along the way.

Alan

 

[stripperguy]

I grew up paddling, hunting, fishing and camping in the Adirondacks. My earliest memories are paddling in W/C canoes and witnessing ridiculous brookie feeding frenzies. But the fishing (and hunting too) were more like a job...endless hours in the boat (no, you can't go to shore to pee!) like our life depended on the days' catch (it didn't).
Sleeping in the canvas cabin tents for a week at a time, or for a night or two under the canoe when it was warm out. I can clearly remember paddling past some tent platforms on some pond and thinking (I was 8 or ten years old) what a sh*t hole...much later in life I realized that was Long Pond.
I gave up all of that when I started working at age 14.

Then, when I was 20 years old, a work buddy suggested we paddle from Old Forge to Tupper Lake, 92 miles of paddle and carry on The Long Diagonal, I reluctantly agreed. We borrowed the family Radisson, known as "The Cork" and set off.
It was then that I remembered that I always enjoyed the paddling when I was younger...I realized that I loved the wilderness and the Adirondacks, actually always did, but especially more so with the absence of alcoholic family members.

I felt reborn!!
A couple years later, I built my first stripper.
Another couple years later and I paddled my hand built boat past the former tent platform sites on Long Pond, with echos in my ears and ghosts in my eyes...
A strange and wonderful mix of serenity and solitude, I knew I was home at last.

 

[Qayaq]

In 1970 I was 12 years old and spent the summer working on my uncle's raspberry farm in Abbotsford, BC. When I got back home to Manitoba at the end of summer I went straight to the National Store (farm supply) and spent everything I had earned on the 14 foot fiberglass "Sioux" canoe that was hanging from the ceiling. I spent the next several summers paddling the creek that ran through our property and into the Assiniboine River. The "Sioux" is now in my son's hands and he uses it on the Cottonwood River which runs through the property he bought near Quesnel, BC.

There have been lots of others through the years. Every spring I have a fling with my creeking kayak on the flood-swollen rivers near home, but my new true love is the mature 1930's Canadian w/c I bought from Karin last year.

 

[Steve in Idaho]

First canoe I owned was a kayak. Actually, a SOF decked canoe that I built as a teenager in '74. Had a couple of fun years with her until some lowlife stole her away. Broke my heart so much that I went without owning another for over two and a half decades. I finally had about resolved to build another, when a pretty Navarro caught my eye. She was great to look at, but not much of a performer. It's been all downhill from there. Multiple boat addiction. I have several steady keepers, but always have my eyes out for another more exotic.

 

[Seeker]

My first kayak trip was in the summer of 1976 or 77 at the Sabattis scout camp in the Adirondacks when I was 12 or 13. I remember how little water it took to float a kayak, and running mine over a sandbar in about 3" of water... I could touch bottom with my hands. I also remember a fellow scout eating (against leadership advice) about half a "loaf" of dried/dehydrated bread, not believing they were not like Saltine crackers, and getting a severe stomach ache when they blew up inside him.

My first canoe trip was with the Boy Scouts down the Delaware River in around 1977/8 when I was 13 or 14. I was bow paddler with an older brother of a friend, a member of the senior patrol. He hit me in the back with a splash of ice cold water every time I stopped paddling, but introduced me to the thirst quenching goodness of grapefruit juice. I also got sunburned as heck, blistered my hands badly, and had a great time.

I built my first (and only, so far) canoe, a Eureka stitch and glue model, in 2007 (age 43), and bought my first/only canoe, a red 16' 1950 Old Town Yankee, in 2013... The Eureka lives here in LA, used mostly for day trips on the local bayous and the occasional odd overnighter. The Yankee lives in my cousin's garage in NY state, used for my annual trek to the Adirondacks or whenever he wants to take it somewhere. I believe it has also made the Delaware trip.

 

[Jim Dodd]

First canoe, was a home built fiberglass, 14'.
Bought a kit, for $50. In the late 60s.
It came with plywood stems, pine stringers, and three forms. A quart of polyester resin and hardener, and some very thin plexiglass. The plexiglass, was to be stapled to the stringers, and the seams covered with fiberglass mat tape. A real cheezey kit !!!
Instruction were good enough for a High School kid to assemble. It took up space in my Mom's basement, until I got married, in 71.
I employed a cousin to aid in covering it with three gallons of additional polyester resin, and fiberglass mat.
It weighed in the neighborhood of 85#. A real ice breaker !

As crude as it was, I had a lot of fun in that POS !

This thread stirred up a lot of good memories !

Thanks Greg

Jim

 

[BWCA66]

So here's the before, during and after facelift pics.

 

[Grandpa Paddler]

The year: 1972. The guy: poor broke 24 yo father of 2 boys age 2 & 3. She was a virgin and belonged to someone else when I set her in the water and climbed in. 10 days later when I brought her back well broken in, the owner decided he couldn't pay for her so I borrowed $200 and she was mine (paddles & PFD's included). And she has been faithful to me since even though I cheat on her frequently with my Wenonahs. She is a Grumman 17J. My eldest, now 46, has claimed her as his birthright, but my wife says I will be buried in her. She may be old, heavy, clumsy and a little scratched and dented, but she was my first and I still love her.

 

[snapper]

My first was a non-descript 15' aluminum canoe that I bought used from a canoe livery on the Delaware River in Narrowsburg, NY; Bob Lander's operation to be exact. It was beat up, ugly and all mine! My sister decided it needed to fit in with the times (it was 1969, the year of the original Woodstock which was held just down the road from our place on the river). She painted it green and then added flowers all around the hull. I paddled it each day from our cabin on the PA side of the river down to work in Narrowsburg using the NY access to get off. My mom came into town each day and picked me up so I didn't have to paddle back upstream to get home after work. While a tandem canoe, all of my adventures were solo and I used it for both transportation and recreation. There were a lot of smallmouth bass caught on the Delaware while paddling that canoe!

That's all for now. Take care, thanks for the trip down memory lane and until next time...be well.

snapper

 

[Jim Dodd]

So here's the before, during and after facelift pics.

And what was wrong with the aluminum gunnels ?

 

[BWCA66]

And what was wrong with the aluminum gunnels ?

Nothing except I have never done a set of wood gunnels by myself before so that along with ash seats, decks(aspen), thwarts and yoke look better than aluminum and are a good place to start practicing. Figured I would pimp out my old love just cause I could!

 

[Will Derness]

And what was wrong with the aluminum gunnels ?

The wood trim brightens up the canoe with quite a nice touch. A blend of traditions, perhaps even a new artistic form of the canoe. Betcha that will get some questions when you get it on the water.

You may have sacrificed some simplicity in maintenance, but that might be the best looking aluminum canoe I've ever seen!

 

[BWCA66]

The wood trim brightens up the canoe with quite a nice touch. A blend of traditions, perhaps even a new artistic form of the canoe. Betcha that will get some questions when you get it on the water.

You may have sacrificed some simplicity in maintenance, but that might be the best looking aluminum canoe I've ever seen!

Yeah maintenance goes up but that's OK. Get's it's 2nd coat of oil this afternoon and then I think we will hit the water tomorrow for a quick spin.

 

[Guest]

I don’t have a distinct memory of my first time in a canoe; probably in my grandfather’s WC at his home at Rouses Point on Lake Champlain, circa 1960. Move vividly fishing from a Grumman with my Dad on the upper Conowingo pool as a young child, but those Susquehanna trips all kind of blend together.

What I remember most are the first few father and son downriver trips in the family Grumman or Wards Sea King. Vividly remember; some of those outings involved inadvertent whitewater experiences in a guidebook lacking era.

I was granted one of the beater Sea Kings as a teenager and had many tandem canoe camping trips in that tank with a paddling pal. I’d love to know who built those Sea Kings for Montgomery Wards; they were tougher (and heavier) than our Grummans.

My first real solo canoe and solo trip was taking an OT Pack around the country in 1988. Down Boquillas canyon (twice, spring and fall), up the Colorado from Pierce Ferry, Waldo Lake and anywhere else I found interesting water. There would have been better canoe choices, though none as cheap, and I was coming from a backpacking mindset gear-wise. Even the 12 foot Pack had room for luxuries.

Funny though, I remember my son’s first times like they were yesterday. Family canoe camping on Allegany reservoir for the first time with the youngest still in diapers, watching the boys safe and happy in camp and thinking triumphantly “We can do this”. And so we kept doing it.

And the boy’s first solo boat experiences. Both around age 8 or 9. One in an OT Rushton pack canoe, the other in a Dagger Tupelo. Giant grins all around, including me, finally back to paddling in my own solo boat. That was an equally glorious feeling, “We can do this, in four solo canoes”. Hot dang.

 

[scoutergriz]

I honestly couldn't tell you when my first time was, as it's rumored that I was conceived on a canoe trip so it could well be before I was even born!
My first canoe though, I remember well- back in the mid '70s my two brothers and I used our paper route money to buy a green behemoth of a fiberglass canoe because my dad's Grumman had pretty well taken up residence at his hunt club several hours away. This just wouldn't do as there was a nice river just under a mile away!
This canoe had to be seen to be believed! It was a bright (almost fluorescent) green 110lb monster about 17' long, 40" wide, and about 18" deep, built out of god knows how many layers of hand laid glass and 3 SOLID keels. Of course it was called the Green Monster. At 14 years old I would be seen portaging it through town with my brothers every Saturday, and along the way we'd continuously hear "there go the -------- brothers"
when I got older, I was left to continue the journeys on my own. Did I mention that all three of us played high school football? the coach really liked our overdeveloped shoulders, abs, and legs!
After high school I got sick of carrying it and picked up a trailer to transport it and added an Evinrude "super 7" and continued to run it like that for several more years.
Sadly, in the late '90s some SOB stole it and it was never seen again, I still keep an eye out for hulking, overdeveloped paddlers on the river in the hopes of rediscovering the "Green Monster"

 

[Jim Dodd]

Nothing except I have never done a set of wood gunnels by myself before so that along with ash seats, decks(aspen), thwarts and yoke look better than aluminum and are a good place to start practicing. Figured I would pimp out my old love just cause I could!

OK ! I was thinking maybe a problem existed, that I didn't catch. The wood should quiet that aluminum down some.

 

[DanG]

We used johnboats where I grew up. My first real canoe experience was with a pal who'd come back from The Land of All Bad Things with a hankering to build a canoe. I forget what company sold the kit, but it was wood and canvas and weighed a lot. What the heck, we were young and used to humping weight. Put it in on the Wabash a few miles north of Lafayette and drifted down the current to New Harmony. I think it took us five days and nights, but my memory isn't what it was. I do remember that we ate catfish and squirrels along the way. Shot squirrels sink like a stone.

 

[yellowcanoe]

First time was in college in a canoeing course Aluminum Grumman. First overnight trip was the Oswegatchie River in 1964.
Married in 1969 got a Grumman as a wedding present
Did not buy my own canoe till I was 43
Not a Grumman

 

[dave0]

My first memories were around 12 years old at a summer camp. Aluminum canoes and sailboats. Paddles that weighed more then my scrawny arse weighed. At age 14 it was an ABS canoe and a 650 mile trip down the Albany River and then down the James Bay to Moosenee. Years later my mother bought an aluminum canoe, I remember helping rack it to her car and driving it home. She paddled that boat for years and when she passed I got it. Not sure what she did but that poor canoe had more waves in the bottom then you could shake a stick at. I paddled it a bit but gave it to my sister who still uses it till this day with her disabled daughter who absolutely loves being in it, how grand can that be!. Now I have more boats than I can use but am not remorseful about buying and using any of them but that tin boat brings back a flood of memories and brings a smile to my face.