Thank the Creator for the Canoe

It wasn't that long ago that it seemed as though every Canadian household with a bit of storage space at home or cottage owned a canoe, or at at least a canoe-ish vessel. Some of them were marvelous canvas-covered, cedar-stripped works of art, as well as being engineering marvels. These were made by companies such as Chestnut and Peterborough which no longer exist. They gave way to dubious but durable "craft' made of aluminum and which clanked like old-style garbage cans. Then came  canoes whose material was masked by a variety of proprietary names, but are plastic, just the same. We have owned all of the above and still have a couple.

Canoes have largely disappeared into the garages and boathouses in favour of kayaks, many of them are modified plastic wading pools with the name kayak attached to them. After decades of paddling in canoes and an earlier era of canoe-tripping with our kids we now have sea kayaks ourselves.

This Year of the Virus we have paddled a lot, beginning in late March. We've been in the kayaks lately but for the first 15 or so forays onto lakes and rivers we were in a canoe. Ruth and I have paddled together for about 45 years so its rare that we aren't in sync, without needing to think  about who does what.



Canadian Canoe Museum

Yesterday was National Canoe Day so I should once again note that what canoeing icon, Bill Mason, called the perfect craft is both highly practical and the vessel which can usher Groundlings into a profoundly spiritual experience in Creation. There are wonders to behold in a canoe or kayak which are visible and audible because they are self-propelled and so close to the water. We do our best to paddle in places and at times when others won't be around but when motorized boats roar by we are reminded of why we choose the "arm strong" method of propulsion. 

There is the sense of the holy in proximity to an otter, or blue heron, a loon or a lunking great snapping turtle, all experiences we've had already this year. If I was creative I would write a prayer for National Canoe Day, and perhaps I will...sometime. I would include gratitude to the Indigenous peoples of different continents who figured out how to use the materials at hand to create their canoes and kayaks, all from renewable materials.