Yesterday was National Canoe Day and we had no opportunity to get out on the water. Our vehicle is on the DL due to an accident and rentals don't have roof racks. Frustrating! We tend to kayak more than canoe these days but canoeing has taken us to some wondrous places through the decades. We canoe-tripped with our kids in Lake Superior and Killarney Provincial Parks and we've explored a hundred wild nooks and crannies in several provinces and states.
Canada's rivers were the first highways for Indigenous peoples and explorers and missionaries, so not surprisingly canoeing has inspired everything from humour to beer to legends. The Flying Canoe or La Chasse Galerie is the story of lumbermen in the deep woods who sell their souls to Satan for a trip to Montreal, and the Prince of Darkness guides their way in the bow.
There are more ancient motifs of the soul-boat in many aboriginal cultures, carrying the dead to the afterlife.
I also think of Canadian canoeing icon Bill Mason whose film Waterwalker includes a song of the same name by Bruce Cockburn and lots of Mason's Christian musings to go along with his explorations of Lake Superior country. You can now watch the film online and I'd recommend it, just to witness the most beautiful solo paddle stroke of any human. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq7CqhbzPUs
I would also encourage you to visit the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough. The last time I did it was with two great old guys from Bridge St UC, one a 90-something who had paddled from the time he was a boy. My great regret is that in his last days Ruth and I were going to take him for a last canoe outing but a cautious family member overruled his enthusiasm. His daughter (also a Bridge St member) figured that if he died in the canoe it would actually be fitting. Wouldn't that have been a soul-boat?
Thank God for canoes. Didn't Jesus' disciples fish from one?
Bill Mason
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