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RE: 25 years and Still Afloat (Part 2: A Chance Meeting, Set-up by the Collective Consciousness, Another Love Story and the Canadian Canoe Museum.)
Canada has such great canoeing! And what country has more of a canoeing heritage? I can't think of one. I have enjoyed some great canoe trips in Canada - Quetico, Algonquin, Killarney, La verendrye, iceout on the Maitland, and more. There is more than a lifetime's worth of incredible possibilities. I'm so glad that Kirk Wipper and the Canoe Museum have saved some of that vast heritage. And that you shared it with us. I'll have to visit that museum sometime. What a great thing.
Thank you @haphazard-hstead! I'm thrilled that you can appreciate what an integral part the canoe is to the fabric that holds Canada together. You've definitely paddle some great Canadian water in your day! All those places you listed are magnificent.
Without this method of transportation our Country wouldn't exist because the terrain and natural environment can be incredibly hostile. I am convinced that our early explorers wouldn't have survived without it.
The work that the museum does for education is invaluable. Especially the piece about teaching indigenous people how to build canoes and kayaks in the ways that their ancestors did. It is preserving so many different traditions and customs. The museum runs workshops of all kinds, not just canoe building. I think it deserves more recognition than it receives. I looked at the "guest book" the day I went to the museum. I went back as far as 2 weeks and counted visitors from 6 different countries. It's probably the largest single collection of canoes and kayaks in the world.
I really like reading about the voyageurs. They lived a tough, tough life. It's incredible how far they traveled every year for the fur trade. It's a little easier for all of us now, thank goodness!
It is incredible to think about what their lives were like. It's a wonder that any of them survived. A fully loaded trader's canoe weighs 3500 pounds. If it was tipped, I read that the cargo would crush and drown the occupants. Damn scary given how aggressive some of the waterways are, that they regularly travelled.
And from what I read, a lot of them didn't even know how to swim. Learning to swim is a pretty recent thing for broad swaths of people to learn. People are something else - and so tough.
Agreed. We live pretty wimpy compared to the demands of everyday life 300+ years ago in North America. I am thankful that I don't have to but I've been working on improving my skills, just in case I have to someday.