I guess my canoe(s) have taken me to many places....like so many others:
....The canoe is a vehicle that carries you into pretty exciting places, not only into whitewater but into the byways and off-beaten places….You are removed entirely from the mundane aspects of ordinary life. You’re witnessing first hand beauty and peace and freedom – especially freedom….Flirtation with the wilderness is contact with truth, because the truth is in nature….I like to identify myself with something that is stable and enduring. Although [nature] is in a state of flux, it is enduring. It is where reality is. I appreciate the canoe for its gifts in that direction. - Kirk Wipper, from CBC Radio’s Ideas program The Perfect Machine: The Canoe.
A journey by canoe along ancient waterways is a good way to rediscover our lost relationship with the natural world and the Creator who put it tohether so long ago. - Bill Mason, Path of the Paddle
The path of the paddle can be a means of getting things back to their original perspective. - Bill Mason, Path of the Paddle
….the age of the canoe is not gone; it’s justdifferent. the canoe is no longer a vehicle of trade and commerce. Instead, it has become a means of venturing back into what is left of the natural world. It’s true there isn’t much left to be discovered, but there is much to be rediscovered about the land, about the creatures who live there, and about ourselves. Where do we come from and where are we going? There is no better place and no better way to follow this quest into the realm of spirit than along the lakes and rivers of the North American wilderness in a canoe. -Bill Mason, Path Of The Paddle
I have often thought about the connections that paddlers experience when canoeing. Peace, reflection and wonder come to mind. I suppose it’s a desire to seek a form of quiet meditation. I find it natural to turn to paddling as a meditation point. I’m not sure that the canoe is the real catalyst for me though. It’s the natural environment that really elevates my awareness and feeling of heightened spiritually and belonging. For instance, I would not feel at one with my surroundings if I was paddling indoors in a chlorinated pool, where as I might feel totally different if I had hiked into a remote waterfall. - Becky Mason
Like him, I find that paddling can take you on a voyage of creativity where you store up experiences in your memory to treasure for a lifetime. – Becky Mason (on her Dad's art)
May every dip of your paddle lead you towards a rediscovery of yourself, of your canoeing companions, of the wonders of nature, and of the unmatched physical and spiritual rapture made possible by the humble canoe - Pierre Elliott Trudeau, foreword to Path of the Paddle by Bill Mason, 1980
What sets a canoeing expedition apart is that it purifies you more rapidly and inescapably than any other. Travel a thousand miles by train and you are a brute; pedal five hundred on a bicycle and you remain basically bourgeois; paddle a hundred in a canoe and you already a child of nature. – Pierre Elliott Trudeau
Canoeing gets you back close to nature, using a method of travel that does not even call for roads or paths. You are following nature’s roads; you are choosing the road less travelled, as Robert Frost once wrote in another context, and that makes all the difference. You discover a sort of simplifying of your values, a distinction between those artificially created and those that are necessary to your spiritual and human development. – Pierre Elliott Trudeau
I think a lot of people want to go back to basics sometimes, to get their bearings. For me a good way to do that is to get into nature by canoe – to take myself as far away as possible from everday life, from its complications and from the artificial wants created by civilization. Canoeing forces you to make a distinction between your needs and your wants. – Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Memoirs
A canoeing expedition….involves a starting point rather than a parting. Although it assumes the breaking of ties, its purpose is not to destroy the past, but to lay down a foundation for the future. From now on, every living act will be built on this step, which will serve as a base long after the return of the expedition….and until the next one. - Pierre Trudeau
The movement of a canoe is like a reed in the wind. Silence is part of it, and the sounds of lapping water, bird songs, and wind in the trees. It is part of the medium through which it floats, the sky, the water, the shores….There is magic in the feel of a paddle and the movement of a canoe, a magic compounded of distance, adventure, solitude, and peace. The way of a canoe is the way of the wilderness, and of a freedom almost forgotten. It is an antidote to insecurity, the open door to waterways of ages past, and a way of life with profound and abiding satisfactions. When a man is part of his canoe, he is part of all that canoes have ever known. – Sigurd Olson from The Singing Wilderness
The canoe was drifting off the islands, and the time had come for the calling, that moment of magic in the north when all is quiet and the water still iridescent with the fading glow of sunset. Even the shores seemed hushed and waiting for the first lone call, and when it came, a single long-drawn mournful note, the quiet was deeper than before. - Sigurd Olson, The Singing Wilderness
I’m sure there are many things I’ll never learn by traveling over the earth in a canoe. I’m just not sure any of them are worth much. - Douglas Woods, Paddle Whispers
I remember my very first canoe trip. I was terrified. We were venturing out into what seemed to be uncharted territory, perhaps never to be seen again. Every aspect of it was intimidating … but especially the idea that somehow our survival depended on us doing stuff and doing it together and doing it right. Of course, steadily, terror gave way to triumph, and I returned with an indescribable feeling of achievement. – Michael Eisner
Wherever there is a channel for water, there is a road for the canoe. – Henry David Thoreau
It is wonderful how well watered this country is…. Generally, you may go any direction in a canoe, by making frequent but not very long portages. - Henry David Thoreau
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be! – Signature from online canoeing forum.
To canoe is to be moved. - Doug E. Bell
If there’s a place, canoe there. - Brent Kelly
Why do we come to this place with its clouds of black flies and mosquitoes, the gravel road that rattles your bones, teeth and tires loose? Why do so many of us return year after year with the spring thaw? We migrate, not unlike other species, to the North, to the water, to the bush and shield rock country that makes up Northern Saskatchewan. We pack up our paddles and gear, strap our canoes on roofs- some of them nice, more of them dented aged jalopies- and instinctively make our way northbound on the CANAM highway.
People ask how I can stand the 13-hour, door to door drive to Missinipe. How do I explain a love for watching geography as it changes with each mile? How do I explain the burst of energy that I am infused with when I pass over the bridge in Prince Albert and the whole world changes from one of lush farmland to one of boreal forest with sneak peeks of lakes with their loons calling in the early evening? I don’t need to explain it to my dog for she wakes from her slumber to sniff at the windowsill. I open it for myself as much as I do for her, breathing in the scent of the Jackpines and fresh water. – Shannon Bond, Churchill River Canoe Blog
Originality is unexplored territory. You get there by carrying a canoe. You can’t take a taxi. – Alan Alda
We need quiet places, and we need quiet ways to travel in them. We never quite realize how valuable they are until we’ve been paddling, camping, and fishing in them for a few days. Once cleansed of the residue of daily living, it’s possible to find what my son once called ‘a calm spot’ in your heart. It’s a good thing to find. – Jerry Dennis, From a Wooden Canoe
The canoe is the most practical, efficient and satisfying way to travel through wild country, particularly on the Canadian Shield, where you can go almost anywhere. I think of that country every day of my life. One of the things I like best about canoe travel is that you are completely self-reliant. There is no dependence on mechanical devices. It is utterly simple. For me, the canoe means complete freedom – the ultimate escape. - Alex Hall
I have always had a desire to explore out-of-way places. Together, the canoe and this country’s many waterways provide the ideal combination. When travelling by canoe you seem to blend in rather than being an intrusion on your surroundings. – John B. Hughes
Canoeing is the best way to become intimate with the land. You can cover so much more territory in a canoe. You don’t need to concentrate on your feet, thereby allowing your eyes to soak up the landscape around you. Travel by canoe is more about the journey than the destination. – Rolf Kraiker
It’s pretty hard for me to go more than a few days without getting a paddle wet somewhere. For me, that stepping into the canoe and pushing off is a very special spiritual and physical experience. Bill Mason had it right: it’s like walking on water. It transports you to another way of being, another way of feeling – it restores my soul. – David Finch
I have been very fortunate to 'travel' by canoe in some unlikely spots.....or rather to places I might not have otherwise gone....I love to hear of far-off places that people get to by canoe....whether in Europe or some remote Northern river....and I have had the opportunity to share in such adventures myself....
