Ode to a canoe

Ode to a canoe

As I sit on the patio looking at the old Coleman 17’ canoe that I will have to disassemble and cut up for disposal I think of all the places that canoe went. A couple weeks ago when  I went to secure it for hurricane Irma, I saw that it had cracked in the bottom, previously I had noticed noticed a split just under the gunwale. I patched it with bathroom caulk so it would hold water and maybe not fly in the storm. It is made out of what Coleman called Ram-X plastic. It rode out Andrew in this same manner, ending up with all sorts of wind thrown plants, roofing materials, dead birds, etc. in it. 
The Coleman was a terribly slow canoe but it was great for fishing. I have hung on to it for years without using it, as I have a lighter, faster solo canoe that I use.

We bought the Coleman from Jet’s Florida Outdoors/Tropical Traders in July of 1982.  It took us fishing in West Lake and the Lungs in Everglades National Park numerous times. Once in the little creek between West Lake and the Lungs it got slammed by an alligator who was not happy sharing the creek with us, and who actually stood on his tail so his whole head was out of the water to show us who he was before he slapped the canoe with his tail. We canoed every canoe trail that Everglades National Park had, and started looking for other places to canoe. The Estero River and Koreshan Historical State Park was a favorite. 

            
                           The Estero river on one of our trips. The area is now quite built up.

It took us out to Cape Sable both by the inland route through Mud Lake and by the outside route where one time because of the currents we had to line it around the point. That time the horseflies were so bad our black Labrador Bogart, decided it was better in the canoe and swam out and got into the canoe. Much yelling ensued but he ignored us and managed to climb in and because of the weight and the way the canoe was packed he didn’t ship much water. When I got the tent up, he rushed in, spun around snapping at and killing all horseflies in the tent and then wouldn’t come out. That is, until the middle of the night, in the rain, he had to pee. We went out, and being already on fours he got back into the tent first, snuggling up next to my husband and leaving me the outside spot now filled with rainwater as he had been leaning against the tent wall. Amazingly my old sleeping bag from backpacking through Europe ten years before kept me dry. 

One of our Cape Sable camps, (that is not a tent, probably towels drying).

Another time on Cape Sable we saw the red sky at morning and broke camp immediately, hoping to make it back to Flamingo. I was starting a new job the next morning. I think by that time we were running a trolling motor on the back of the canoe. Soon the waves were getting too high and we landed the canoe, pulling it above the high tide line. There were campers there also, and one tent broke loose and went rolling across the field of Opuntia cactus. Then there was a motorboat, this woman brought her boat nose in and the waves immediately started coming over the motor and transom so we helped her get her stuff out. We were stuck out there for another night no way to contact anyone. Finally a ranger came by in a boat and only because she demanded it, he took her in and she called our relatives. Once the weather calmed down we made it back to Flamingo. We took the inland route once out there and then I think we took the outside route three times more. I made a marine canvas cover that attached by Velcro and covered the center of the canoe where the dog rode in the shade. This also helped keep spray out of the canoe.

The Buffalo River, north Arkansas. One of our camps along the river. David fishing.
 

The Buffalo River was the first National Wild and Scenic River in the National Park system.  We had lived out in Arkansas for a little over a year helping our friends build their home near there. While living out there we had mostly just swam in the river, we did get to watch a lot of peoples’ mistakes with rental canoes going past. After we moved back down here we went back out there on vacation. Once we had tried an inflatable canoe, but that didn’t work too well, the wind blew it around and made it hard to steer.

 

                                 David, fooling around blowing the canoe up.

We did a four day trip on the Buffalo River in north Arkansas with the Coleman, again taking Bogart. We also found out that Coleman canoes were much cheaper in the new Walmart in Mountain Home, Arkansas. On the second day of our four day canoe trip, we were fishing and not paying attention and got driven up against and alongside a log in the river. Within seconds the canoe was getting sucked under the log. We had learned about waterproofing and tying all our stuff into the canoe from watching others and our own experiences. As the canoe went under the log, the dog and I also dove under following the canoe. If we lost the canoe we were in trouble, as this is wilderness and we only had topo maps for along the river. I managed to grab a painter (rope) trailing the canoe and dragged it up on a gravel bar. Then I ran and swam after the paddles to grab them, the river was running about three miles an hour. I looked and my husband was hanging on to the log. He got loose and joined us, but we found out later he had a cracked rib from the experience. Luckily it was early in the day and sunny so we could dry out whatever had gotten wet. In the end what we lost to the river was our fishing tackle that hadn’t been tied in. We knew this river breaks fiberglass canoes in two, so we were lucky with this plastic canoe, I think some of the aluminum gunwale got bent.

   The dog loved being on the river, and was daily checking to see why rocks were making gurgling noises. When we left the Buffalo and got on the White River, a trout stream, the current was much stronger as the dam turbines were running.  We stayed against the left bank where it wasn’t as strong and were treated to a weasel or mink working the hillside along the river. It didn’t seem to notice us or the dog right along the bank slowly passing by.  When we got to the take out point, Bogart jumped into the river and stopped dead in his tracks, this wasn’t the pleasantly cool Buffalo River this was the ice cold White River. Its water coming from the bottom of Bull Shoals Lake through the dam and into the river, so quite a few degrees colder. It was pretty funny watching him as he slowly backed out.

Many memories in this old canoe, so it’s no wonder I have held on to it for so long. 


             A more recent river photo. This is Buck in the Buffalo River at Buffalo Point in 2013.