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Illustration by Drew Shannon
The first thing we always do when we open up our Ontario summer cabin is to carefully carry out my cedar and canvas canoe. It has lain inside for months, protected from the ice and snow, falling branches and curious animals (except for perhaps the occasional mouse). It is hard for me to overstate how important this humble craft, made from nothing but wood and a bit of cloth, has become to me over time. This year, as I carried it outside and looked it over like a long-lost friend, caressing its smooth, painted hull, I realized that it was 50 years ago when I first fell in love with what was to become an integral part of my life.
My passion started as a teenager when I spent a good part of my summer at a camp in Algonquin Provincial Park. The camp was at the edge of a beautiful northern lake, but all I could focus on when I first arrived were the dozens of orange and green cedar canoes lined up along the shore. I was totally besotted by the look of these boats before I even set foot in one.
This camp was known for its wilderness tripping and it wasn’t long before I set out on a 10-day journey into the backcountry. Three canoes, with three large boys in each, with multiple packs of tents, sleeping bags and food stuffed in between. It was tough at first and there were a lot of blisters, but after eight to 10 hours a day, we quickly got the hang of it and learned how to elegantly steer our canoes, how to point into the wind and waves, how to move silently as we passed a moose on the shore, and then how to pick up and carry our boats by ourselves over portages that could be several kilometres long. They became a real part of us and we learned to treat them with a great deal of respect. After all, they were our only connection back to civilization. If we hit a rock going down some rapids and ripped the canvas or even cracked the wood, we would take the top off one of our tin cans of food, heat up some pine pitch and glue the metal to the hull. Not exactly a work of art but it became a badge of honour, symbolizing our ability to somehow survive all on our own.
For four summers, I kept coming back, eventually helping to lead my own trips, often in the backcountry for 30 to 40 days over two months. The camp even had its own master canoe craftsman, who was always building new boats and repairing the old ones and I watched him in awe as he created these marvels of engineering in his workshop. I learned that blond canoes meant that it was more recently built and lighter to carry. Woe be to the tripper who ended up with a canoe of dark brown wood as it would be old, waterlogged and definitely painful to carry. With a few trips under our belt, my friends and I even started to make our own paddles, carving, sanding and varnishing these long slabs of ash, cherry and pine, customizing the length and shape to match our own fast-evolving style of paddling.
There is something so beautifully simple about a canoe. It’s such a strong and lightweight design. Often just 16 feet long, capable of holding almost 800 pounds but only weighing on average, about 60 pounds. They are swift, silent, easy to manoeuvre in all kinds of water and just so graceful.
At the cottage, I love to get into the canoe by myself as dusk is approaching and the water is smooth as glass. I kneel on the ribs at the exact centre pivot point of the hull, the canoe is tipped so that one gunnel almost touches the water, and I dip my hand-carved cherry paddle into the water, moving it oh so slowly, without making a sound, a splash or a wave, sliding effortlessly across the lake. At times like this, I often reflect on the long history of canoes, how they were created and perfected hundreds of years ago by Indigenous people who relied on them to survive, and how their basic shape and design has remained constant to this day.
It was no coincidence that 12 years after my first summer in Algonquin, I proposed to my girlfriend (and now wife) while on a canoe trip in Algonquin, camped on a small Island that I had used to frequent as a teenager. Then 15 years and three children later, when we finally bought a small cottage ourselves, the first thing I did after signing the papers was to search out our own cedar and canvas boat, the same one that I still carefully patch and repair each summer and then carefully store away for the winter. We have taken it on countless trips with our children. We have sat on the dock and spent weeks hand-carving cherry paddles. My daughter eventually became a senior tripping guide at a different camp and she would sometimes paddle her group of young girls by our dock, knowing that we had a box of ice cream sandwiches always waiting in the freezer for just such an occasion.
I used to say that when I die, I wanted to be placed in my canoe with a pile of wood and set ablaze in the middle of the lake. But this year, after opening up the cottage and carrying my canoe down to the lake, I saw my eldest son get in the boat with his three-year-old daughter with her own tiny cherry paddle, and I watched them head out across the lake in search of turtles and bears and, most importantly, blueberries.
As I listened to the sound of her excited voice floating across the water, it was clear to me that I won’t be going out in a blaze of glory after all. My only wish now, is that my family continues to enjoy this canoe as much as I always have.
Douglas Lawrence lives in Toronto. His canoe lives in the Kawarthas.