| Canoe Camping |
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DESCRIPTION A canoer can carry heavier and bulkier loads than a backpacker, and can travel farther and more easily under favorable conditions. Portaging by foot is necessary to pass between water bodies or around obstacles such as Rapid s or Waterfall s, but because portaging is more difficult, canoe campers prefer to travel by water. Because they usually don't have to carry their gear, canoe campers can carry more food and go on longer trips. Throwing a few more pounds of dried food in a backpack significantly changes a hiker's life, but a few more pounds in the bottom of a canoe barely make a difference. Although most experienced trippers feel comfortable paddling straight through large bodies of water, canoers typically stay within a few hundred metres of shore. In fact, since a fully loaded canoe only Draw s 12 to 16 cm (six to eight inches), it can approach a rocky shore as close as arm's-length. This proximity lets the canoer observe aquatic and near-shore plants and wildlife from a perspective that walking on solid ground does not allow. Many people Fish while canoe camping. Canoeing provides a very different recreational experience than backpacking. It produces less noise, with no crunching boots and bouncing packs. Maneuverability on the water, and the easy shift to portaging over land, allow canoe campers to go places that simply can't be accessed conveniently by other means of transportation. The versatility of canoe tripping allows its campers to go places and see things that they otherwise could not. HISTORY Native American s of many different tribes practiced "canoe camping" regularly, albeit as a means of transportation rather than a recreational activity. Before the age of roads, canals, airplanes, etc., the most effective way to travel across the vast expanse of northern wilderness was to navigate the countless small waterways that dotted the landscape as far as one could see. The canoe is perfect for traveling through these areas - light and relatively easy to carry, fast, able to traverse a wide variety of different water ways (small streams to intense rapids to huge lakes), and able to carry large loads. It was for all these reasons that the Voyageurs made extensive use of the canoe. As time went on and the "wilderness" of the Americas was tamed, the canoe as a means of primary transportation lost its practicality for obvious reasons. Soon it turned into a recreational sport, a way for Americans and others to experience the pre-European America, and have a glimpse of a formerly never-ending wilderness. Sometimes this type of experience is revisited in fiction, and sometimes in real life. The history of the Grand Portage, MN is an excellent metaphorical microcosm for the larger change and the eventual invention of the idea of "canoe camping"...for fun. Notable proponents and expeditions An early proponent and popularizer of canoe camping was George W. Sears , a sportswriter for Forest And Stream magazine in the 1880s , whose book ''Woodcraft'' (1884), told the story of his 1883 , 266-mile journey through the central Adirondacks in a nine foot long, ten and a half pound solo canoe named the ''Sairy Gamp''. He was 64 years old and in frail health at the time. Also in 1883, American Canoe Association Secretary Charles Neide and retired sea captain "Barnacle" Kendall paddled and sailed over three thousand miles in a Sailing Canoe from Lake George, New York to Pensacola, Florida . The adventure novel '' Canoeing With The Cree '' relates Eric Sevareid 's journey from Minnesota to Hudson Bay in 1930 . In Canada, Bill Mason was a well-known author, artist, filmmaker, and environmentalist who through several books and films greatly advanced the popularity of canoe camping. In the "Source to Sea expedition" of 2005, two students from North Carolina State University paddled 2,150 miles down the Mississippi and Atchafalaya River s to support the Audubon Society 's Upper Mississippi River Campaign. POPULAR DESTINATIONS Canada
United States
EXTERNAL LINKS
Some more literature about canoe camping
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