The Cruising Canoe and its Outfit
Harper's New Monthly Magazine
August, 1880
When John Macgregor, of the Inner Temple, published his entertaining account of the Rob Roy's thousand mile voyage on the lakes and rivers of Europe, he established canoeing as a summer pastime. The idea was not new; it was older than authentic history; but he gave it an overhauling and brushing up that brought it out in a form that was wonderfully attractive. The Rob Roy was so diminutive that her captain was able to transport her on horseback, but what she accomplished made her quite as famous as any ship of her Majesty's navy. The English canoe fleet was soon numbered by hundreds. The crank Rob Roy was superseded, as a sailing canoe, by the Nautilus, and many voyages, under an endless variety of conditions, have since been accomplished. Canoe clubs were organized, and in an incredibly brief time canoeing became in Great Britain a national pastime.
The introduction of canoeing in the United States may be said to have taken place in 1870, when the New York Canoe Club was founded by William L. Alden. The Indian birch and dug-out, it is true belong to the canoe group, but they are, at best, rude craft, unfit for general cruising, and had long before gone into disuse, and come to be valued only as relics of an uncivilized condition. Americans have enthusiastically adopted the pastime, and it is only a question of time when canoes will be as frequently seen on our bays, lakes, and rivers as sail and row boats. Besides our long coastline, we have an immense system of inland waters, a great part of which is as yet unexplored, and can not for years be explored by any other craft than the light and easily portaged canoe. There is no one of the States in which, long cruises may not be made.
The Canadian Canoe
It has been stated, upon authority, that summer cruises may be made upon the waters of Wisconsin alone for thirty years without retracing or exhausting the territory. In the northern portion of the State there are almost numberless unexplored lakes, some of large size, that are connected by rivers and smaller streams. A canoe may, for instance, be launched upon Pewaukee Lake, a beautiful sheet of water about twenty miles west of Milwaukee, and then follow a winding course through a delightful country, through lake to rivulet, and from rivulet to lake, the lakes varying in length from three to eight miles, and in width from one to four miles. Leaving the lakes, the canoe may follow Rock River, and passing many beautiful towns and villages, strike the Mississippi at Rock Island, Illinois. Many of the Western (notably Minnesota and Michigan), Eastern, and Middle States offer equally attractive fields for summer cruising: Canada is as yet almost unmapped. Twenty-five miles to the northward of Quebec the exploring canoeist is beyond the bounds of civilization, and at the entrance to a region of picturesque lakes, that with their connecting streams, form a chain almost unbroken, save by rapids and falls, to either the Hudson Bay country or the Saguenay, and the little-known territory still to the northward.
Long cruises have been made by Americans. The Kleine Fritz (A.H.Siegfried) has followed the extreme head-waters to Rock Island, Illinois; the Maria Theresa (N.H. Bishop) has cruised by inland waters from Lansingburg, New York, to the mouth of the Suwannee River; the Bubble (Charles E. Chase) in 1878 cruised from New York to Quebec by connecting waterways, thence by portage, through the valley of the Chaudiére, to the head-waters of and down the Connecticut River, to and through Long Island Sound, to New York. Mr. C. H. Farnham has recently completed a Canadian voyage embracing the Saguenay, its tributaries, and other watercourses. In 1879 Mr. Frank Zihler made a cruise of about 1200 miles, from Racine Wisconsin, to New Orleans. Many less extended cruises have been made, and clubs have been organized in the larger cities.
"A canoe," according to a recent official and technical definition "is a boat sharp at both ends, not more than thirty-six inches beam, and which can be effectively propelled by a double-bladed paddle; but a canoe may be propelled either by a double or single bladed paddle, or by one or more sails. No other means of propulsion shall be used."
This is the single modern cruising canoe. She is a unique craft, a boat unlike, and yet having the distinctive qualities of, all the others.
The best of her qualities is that she is manageable. In calms she is easily propelled by the single or double bladed paddle, and in a favoring breeze she fills away, under one or more sails, and logs from three to eight miles an hour. Properly constructed, she weighs no more than seventy-five pounds, and may therefore be carried on the canoeist's head and shoulders from stream to stream, and around dams and rapids. The paddle, although it affords somewhat less speed for short distances, is much more serviceable than oars, as it admits of quicker action, enables the canoeist to face in the direction of his progress, and to keep an easy lookout for dangers. The canoe is sufficiently capacious to carry a month's supply of luggage and provisions without trespassing upon the space amidships, that may, if need be, be converted into sleeping quarters. She is a craft in which a man of nautical tastes may comfortably cruise in inland waters at a per diem expense of less than one dollar. This light stanch and roomy little craft is as unlike the Indian birch - the typical canoe of the United States - as she can well be.
Within the last ten years many different models have been
produced, and a variety of materials used in the construction. The Herald and English canoes are reflections of the birch; the
Nautilus, of the whale-boat; the Rob Roy, of the racing shell; and the Shadow, (pictured right) the combination of
all. Canoes are always cruising craft, although they may be built, as ships are, with reference to the work they are to perform. The
canoe that is to run down a river that is frequently broken by rapids and dams must be light, that she may be easily portaged. If the
camping outfit is dispensed with, the beam may be greatly diminished, and greater speed attained. Technically there are but two classes
of canoes, the sailing and the paddling, the former being the canoe for general cruising. Lightness in a canoe that is always to cruise
upon deep water may be sacrificed to sailing qualities, but it is indispensable to the canoe that is to be used for general cruising. American
as well as English builders, however, too often sacrifice lightness to strength - a grievous fault, the canoeist finds, after he has tugged the
heavy craft over a few portages. The canoes built by Rushton (Canton, New York) are models in this respect, their average weight being about
fifty-five pounds. and that without sacrifice of the essential element - strength. The carvel-built or smooth side canoe is lighter as well as
speedier than the clinker-built, but both British and American builders, with the conservative pig-headedness of their craft, give
preference to the latter. The Rice Lake canoes built by Herald, of Gore's Landin, Ontario, and by English, of Peterborough, Ontario,
are of the former class, and are not only light and immensely strong, but, under certain conditions, very speedy.
The Racine Boat Company, of Racine, Wisconsin, has produced a canoe (shown at the left) that is a revelation in the art of
boat-building. The sides are composed of three sheets of birch, cherry, or cedar cemented together, the grain of the inner
sheet crossing the outer. This veneer, while the wood is green, is pressed into the desired form. The sides are one-eighth of an
inch thick, perfectly smooth without a seam except at the ends, which are neatly sheathed with brass. There are no brad, screw, or
rivet holes that are not covered by the keel or wale along the edge of the deck. This canoe, with the paddle, apron, and rigging, weighs
eighty-five pounds.
The streaks of the clinker-built canoe rarely check, the wood being generally well seasoned; but unless the ribs are very close to each other - not more than three inches apart - and snugly fitted, they will warp into most tantalizing shapes.
Another and distinct class of canoes has been produced in this country. Canoeing embraces not only the hour's sailing and paddling after business, and the long and short cruises, but also amateur mechanics. The canoeist, very early in his career learns that he must rely upon himself in everything relating to his boat. He must be captain, rigger, carpenter, cook, and cabin-boy. A rudder eye snaps off - as they will if he is verdant enough to allow his builder to use them - and he must drill out and put in another, or submit to a tedious delay. The canoe dashes against a snag or a sunken rock in a rapid, and gets ashore, miles from any builder's shop with an ugly hole at the bow. The canoeist must have the strip of cedar, the marine glue, and the nails at hand, and repair the damage, or tow his water-logged craft to the builder. There are scores of odd jobs that he must attend to, to the pleasures of which the unhappy mortal who navigates only a shell is a stranger.
The canoeist begins with a jackknife, and works up to jack-plane, square and compasses, and ultimately to the carpenter's whole kit. He drafts a model, and turns out a fair canoe, to say nothing of supplying from his own shop many of his camp fittings. The speediest sailing canoe in England, and paddling canoe in the United States, is of amateur build. Amateur builders have constructed very credible wooden canoes, but, as yet, few have attempted anything but the canvas craft - a pretty and most serviceable boat, the frame of which consists of stem and stern posts, keel, keelson, lateral strips, ribs, bulk-heads, and deck timbers. The coracle, one of the earliest craft of Great Britain, the Esquimau kayak, and the Indian birch embody the idea - a frame covered with a tough skin. A very ordinary degree of mechanical skill suffices for the production of a fair canvas canoe. The practiced hand, however, may work out the subtleties of the boat builder's art in canvas and spruce strips as deftly as in white and Spanish cedar.
The four inside canoes shown here are of canvas.
The material used in the construction of each cost about ten dollars. The amateur should not essay the building of a paper canoe.
Fine linen paper is an excellent material, but the highest degree of skill is requisite in preparing it. The building of these boats,
besides requiring costly models or moulds, involves a process of water-proofing with which the amateur must be familiar, or submit
to the inconvenience of floating and foundering in a craft of pulp.
The cruising outfit must be determined by the voyage that is to be undertaken. An extra woollen shirt and pair of stockings, with a few toilet articles, may be all that will be required on one cruise while upon another an outfit as elaborate in its way as that of a Polaris or Jeannette may no more than suffice.
Camping cruises are most commonly made in the United States and Canada.
The first and most important item is that of clothing. It is a rule of almost universal application, approved by
all experienced canoeists, that, no matter what the weather, the clothing should not be light. Two suits of gray
flannel underwear, a blue flannel yachting shirt, four pairs of socks, a coat of substantial stuff, are almost
indispensable for a two weeks' cruise. The yachting shirt need not be worn during work in the heat of the day,
but it is required, and the coat also, at night. The best head-covering is the pith helmet. The sun's rays do not
penetrate it, and it is light. The naval cap is serviceable, particularly in camp. A pair of stout shoes should be
provided for shore work; canvas shoes with rubber soles should be used in the canoe. A poncho and havelock cap
comprise the rubber clothing outfit. Leggings are rarely necessary, and, after many hundred miles of cruising in
all weathers, we conclude that they are not worth storage room.
The camp kit, it is evident, must be compact as
well as light. A man may sleep as undisturbedly in a canoe as in any other space of the same dimensions, but a tent of
stout white drilling affords more desirable quarters. If the material is close and hard, no water-proofing is necessary.
The tent may be pitched over one or more canoes. Two camp-stools serve as chair and table.
A bed is quickly made of blankets in the canoe or on the ground. A hammock swung between trees may serve on occasions, but the canvas cot is better.
This is the simplest, lightest, and most compact of all devices, and may be used wherever tent pegs can be driven. With the
addition of the rubber air pillow it is a bed that very nearly approaches perfection. It is composed of legs that are driven
into the ground, end pieces, and the canvas, the ends of which are securely pegged down. A folding frame is easily constructed,
and dispenses with peg-driving - an important advantage on rocky ground. Two woollen blankets of stout gray stuff, and one rubber
blanket should be provided.
Primitive camp cookery requires the romance of the
camp fire, but the canoeist who has seen his dinner overturned by the burning away of a forestick or back-log, his kettles
burned, blackened, and melted, parts company with sentiment, and seeks a stove. The Rob Roy cuisine, designed by Mr.
Macgregor, contains a Russian lamp, spirit flask, tea-strainer, salt and match boxes, spoons, drinking horn, a boiler, frying-pan,
water-proof provision bag, and a covering bag. The lamp affords an alcohol flame that lasts about ten minutes. The cuisine
costs in London from £2 18s to £3 11s 6d. It is very serviceable at times, but can not be relied upon for all
the cooking on a cruise. Oil stoves are objectionable because of the unpleasant odor of the fuel. The best oil is nearly
odorless, but it can not be obtained outside of the large cities. Wood is the most reliable and available of fuels. A small
sheet-iron stove answers the purpose admirably.
The stove has no bottom, as the fire should be built upon the ground. The pipe should be easily un-jointed, and may be stowed with a nest of camp kettles and frying pan inside the stove. The whole should be stowed in a canvas bag. This stove may be used in the tent by lengthening the stove-pipe. Water may be boiled in the canoe with a small Russian lamp. If the canoe is purchased complete, the outfit should consist of masts, paddle, sails, rubber cushion, apron, and painter. The outfit of every canoe should include a circular rubber cushion, and a rubber apron for covering the cockpit, to keep out the rain and seas. A limited stock of repair materials should be provided: extra cordage, strips of wood, copper shell nails, canvas, needles and thread, white lead, varnish or paint. A hatchet will serve as camp axe and hammer.
The cruising canoe is not a crank craft, but, like yachts and ships, she sometimes comes to grief through the inexperience,
recklessness, or misfortune of her captain. A flaw that comes down between the hills, or a snag in a rapid, sometimes produces
inversions that the right-minded canoeist remembers with proud complacency - after he has safely landed. Life-belts should be
worn in squally weather and in running rapids. The circular rubber belt is serviceable and compact. The Racine Boat Company
manufacture an article that serves the triple purpose of a life belt, cushion, and mattress.
The rubber cushion or the air-pillow will sustain the head above water, but neither is easily adjusted.
The best charts are those published by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. The coast pilots contain the charts upon smaller scale, with valuable notes. The price of the charts and coast pilots is nominal.
In stowing a canoe it is of the first importance to so dispose the luggage that the craft shall trim properly. The clothing, camp kit, provisions, and the rest of the cargo become ballast, and should add to the stiffness of the canoe. Everything should have its place, and should be at hand when required.
Cooked food may be carried in a rubber haversack in the forward water-tight compartment, with the canned goods. The stove should be just aft of the mainmast; the clothing, toilet case, and other articles of that class, in a stout rubber or canvas bag in the cuddy - the space just aft of the canoeist's seat, between the sliding and the after bulk-head. The tent, blankets, and air-pillow should be stowed in the after water-tight compartment. The smaller articles that must always be within easy reach may be stowed in rubber pockets suspended at the canoeist's hand under the deck.
Under ordinary conditions, it is far more enjoyable to cruise leisurely than to make distance the principal consideration. From twenty to thirty miles per day may be comfortably made under paddle. The canoe, as constructed in this country, sails well before the wind, but, being flat on the bottom, as she must be to run rapids, does not work close to windward. Lee-boards are rarely used. False keels, or rockers, from five to ten feet in length, have been tried upon deep-water cruises and in races, and been adopted by many canoeists. Centre-board canoes are a novelty in the United States. In England the best sailing canoes are provided with centre-boards of one-eighth inch plate iron, weighing from thirty to eighty pounds. The weight of the centre-board enables the canoe to carry about three times the ordinary spread of sail, or from sixty to one hundred and sixty square feet. The notable Hendon sailing races are almost exclusively between canoes of this class. Centre-board canoes, however, are not adapted to general cruising.
Two men, one at either end, can carry a heavily laden canoe. An ingenious device - an arrangement of spruce sticks and leather straps - by a member of the New York Canoe Club, renders the work easier on a smooth road.
If the voyager is alone, however, he must portage the canoe, and return for the cargo. With a yoke resting in
braces on deck at a point nearly midships, the canoe may be carried with comparative ease.
Running rapids is one of the many delights of canoeing. It requires a sharp look-out, a quick eye, a little nerve, and prompt action. At the head of nearly every rapid is a triangle of smooth water. As a rule, the canoeist should steer for the apex. The deepest water is on the concave shore, but rocks, stumps, and snags of various sorts are distributed without any apparent attempt at systematic grouping. Luck and skill combine attractively to render the passage of a rapid easy.
It is an error to assume that canoeing involves great hazard or hardship. It is a free, vigorous, healthful, out-of-door life. The canoeist may court danger, but ordinary caution will avoid serious mishaps. He may subsist on penitential bread and water, but he may also provide himself, from the canoe stores, with a dinner that would be relishable at home. An American lady, who has several tenting cruises with her husband carries into camp her household art; she has braved all sorts of weather on the lakes, has tented and cooked in field forest, and now declares canoeing to what is claimed for it by its American sponsor - " the most perfect of all possible out-of-door sports."
This article first appeared in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Issue Number 363, August, 1880, published by Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square, New York. Many thanks to Paul Maybury of Massachusetts for his generosity in providing the photocopies that allowed us to bring you this great 19th century article on The Cruising Canoe.
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