“What sets a canoeing expedition apart is that it purifies you more rapidly and inescapably than any other travel. Travel a thousand miles by train and you are a brute; pedal five hundred on a bicycle and you remain basically a bourgeois; paddle a hundred in a canoe and you are already a child of nature.”
-Pierre Elliott Trudeau
Our new canoe has arrived!!
For a few years now, Lee and I have been test paddling tripping canoes trying to find the perfect fit for our family. A couple of weeks ago, we rented a 17’4 Langford Prospector for a weekend canoe trip into Lake Louisa in Algonquin and fell completely, head over-heels-in-love!! When we returned the rental, we ordered our own, custom canoe. Yesterday, Lee made the long drive north to Dwight and picked up our new beauty and there it was, gleaming in the sun on our front lawn when I returned home from work!
So here are the details:
| Length | 17’4″ | Beam | 35.5″ |
| Depth | 14.5″ | Weight | |
| Capacity | 1300 lbs. | Rocker | slight |
| Bow | 22″ |
We got ash gunnels and cherry seats, thwarts and yoke on a kevlar Ultralite, bringing the total weight in somewhere around 46 lbs.
We got the two-tone paint job so the bottom half of the boat is white while the upper half is Aussie green. The white bottom means that our canoe will look new for longer. When a canoe scratches (on a rock, twig, whatever), it scratches white so if you have a full-coloured boat, scratches are very visible and your canoe looks old faster.
This is what our canoe looks like:
Isn’t it beautiful?
The really amazing thing about this canoe is that it can easily hold Lee, myself, our two 100-lb. dogs, two large packs and still have room and capacity. It is very stable and glides beautifully. When you throw it up on your shoulders, it is perfectly balanced allowing you to portage without having to touch the canoe with your hands which means a much more comfortable portage. This canoe has pronounced swept ends, immense depth, volume, and the spray rail peels water away from the hull even in rollers.
I can’t wait to hit the water on a trip!
So as Henry David Thoreau once said “everyone must believe in something. I believe I’ll go canoeing”!
Posted by Matt on August 10, 2010 at 6:10 pm
Love the Thoreau quote but find it interesting that you would use it. You share the same love of the outdoors but I see you as having very different ideologies.
The big question about the canoe is how many pounds of drunk can it carry?