New Year's Day for Family Veterans

Jim showing off his military scrapbooks to family

Our family has ancestors who fought (and some died) in the Pequot War, King Phillip's War, and the Revolutionary War but I haven't tried figure out where they might have been on New Year's Day. Here are the the more recent family veterans' New Year's Day stories:

My Dad, 2nd Lt. Allen Woodruff, was in a Field Artillery unit at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, on New Year's Day of 1919. On New Year's Day of 1945 I was in Hawaii getting ready to ship out for Okinawa. Tough time at Waikiki Beach as I remember. T-4 Dick Woodruff was a forward observer radio man with the 911th Field Artillery Battalion of the 86th Infantry Division on their way to fight across Germany on that same day. We also know he was an MP in Manila on New Year's of 1946. That day in 1946 I was the Commanding Officer of an Engineer Topographic Company in Seoul, Korea. On New Year's Day of 1945 Seaman (eventually Gunner's Mate) John Woodruff was probably on an as yet unidentified troopship on the Pacific on the way to Ulithi where he boarded the Destroyer USS Bebas. His son Allen thinks that John was in dry dock at Pearl Harbor on New year's Day 1946. He was then assigned to the Minesweeper MS 107 that had a collision with an Army ship off Waikiki. On New Year's Day 1969 son-in-law Pvt. E-2 Ken Stock was on leave at home during a break between Basic Training and Advanced Individual Training at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri.

My late sister-in-law Mary Ryan Woodruff's family served their country in spades. On New Year's Day of 1969 her nephew then Marine Pfc.Mike Ferris was on a hillside in Vietnam on radio watch in "Operation Dawson River". He had only been "in country" 65 days. He and I have an ongoing Email conversation going telling each other war stories. Her brother Tech Sgt. "Snub" Ryan of the 104th Infantry Division spent New Years Day of 1945 in Germany where he had just been in the awful Battle of Hurtgen Forest. He was reported to be the sole survivor of his platoon. Her brother "Uncle Pat" Ryan was probably at Elmendorf Air Base in Alaska on New Year's Day during a Korean War year but I just recently found out that Pat was in the Army so I will have to research his career. The saddest story is that of her brother Tom who was killed in a flight training accident at Douglas Field, an Army Air Force training base near the Mexican Border in Arizona. The accident happened in February, 1943, so I figure that's where he was on New Year's Day of 1943.

Nephew Richard's son Major Jason Woodruff is career Air Force. He was in Massachusetts at Hanscomb Air Force Base on New Year's Day of 2010. My nephew Lt. Col. John Woodruff is also career Air Force but since he has not been forthcoming with information on his career I'm going to leave him in limbo until he produces.

Ensign Uncle Tracy Shane was on the training ship SS Nantucket off Pellham Bay New York (or maybe on shore) on New Year''s Day of 1919. On New Year's Day of 1945 his son Lt. George Shane was at the Lemoore Army Flying School in California waiting for the B-24 bomber which he would fly in the U.S. during the rest of the war. On that same day Tracy's son-in-law Cpl.? Howard Elliot, a mortar man in the 102nd Infantry Division, was in a hospital at Bathe, England, recovering from two wounds received in battle in Germany, which earned him dual Purple Hearts. He would return to combat as a machine gunner with his Division before it crossed the Rhine River. On New Year's Day of 1954 George's brother First Class Petty Officer Bob Shane was at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on the Destroyer Gatling (DD 671) after an around-the-world cruise with three other destroyers following the Korean War armistice. They had been active with Naval Task Forces both east and west of Korea during the fighting. On New Year's Day of 1955 Cpl. Phil Shane was at Ft. Knox with the 74th Signal Company of the 3rd Armored Division.

My late wife Elaine's family had interesting military involvements starting with her great Grandfather Pvt. John George of the 1st Michigan Volunteer Artillery Regiment during the Civil War. On New Year's Day 1863 he was somewhere near the Clinch River in Tennessee, having been involved in the Battle of Walker's Ford in December of 1862. Her three Belke brothers and two Karstens cousins all served in the US Army. On New Year's Day 1945 Master Sergeant Russell was at Ft. Francis E. Warren, Wyoming. Tech Sergeant (later First Sgt.) Jerome was in England with the 9th Air Force. The previous New Year's he was in Egypt with that same 9th Air Force. Sergeant Richard was at the McCook Army Air Base in Nebraska on New Year's day of 1945. Brother Jerome signed up with the reserves after the war which got him a tour in Germany with the Army Engineers during the Korean War. Cousin Ron Karstens was at Ft. Dix, New Jersey, on New Year's Day 1958 on his way to Germany. Cousin Don Karstens left for basic training at Ft. Leonard Wood on New Year's Day 1960. He would spend the next New Year's Day in Korea. Elaine's nephew, Jerome's son, Wayne Belke was an Air Force Lieutenant on a US air base Taiwan on New Year's Day of 1972.

Cousin-in-law Chief Warrant Officer Darrell Floro, Mary's husband who had a 40 year career in the Ohio National Guard, was at home in Oak Harbor most New Years (unless Mary can inform me differently). Cousin Lt. Don Thayer was at Johnson Air Base in Japan and Cousin Sgt. Rod Thayer was at Kadena Ar Base on Okinawa on New Year's Day 1952. Mary and Darrell's son Chris was in the Army Special Forces so we are not supposed to know where he was all his service years but we know enough to say he was in Ft. Bragg, N.C. on New Year's Day 2006. Mary and Darrell's daughter Betsy was in ROTC at Michigan State for a while, but I don't know if she was still in it on any New Year's Day.

Cousin Vincent Pratt served on the Aircraft Carrier USS Saratoga. After a cruise in the Mediterranean in the summer of 1962 the Saratoga was involved in the blockade of Cuba during the Missile Crisis. Thus on New Year's Day of 1963 Vince was down in the boiler room of the Saratoga which was cruising on patrol in the Caribbean. Uncle Henry Pratt was in the horse cavalry ROTC at Michigan Agricultural College in 1916 so I calculate that he was back at the family home south of Watervliet on Christmas break on New Year's Day of 1917. Cousins Harlan and Bob Pratt were in the ROTC at UCLA in 1926 so on New Year's Day of 1927 I imagine they would have been home with Aunt Louise. Marj Pratt Ingram will have to straighten me out if that guess is wrong.

If I have messed up any of the years in this account, I assume you will correct me. This started out as a New Year's Day project but it grew like my Military Scrapbook project. Like I always say, it keeps me out of the pool hall.

Dynamite Stories: Episode 1 - The Lombardy Poplars

Conversations with my nieces and nephews about trees in the yard at the old home place on Paw Paw Avenue in Watervliet reminded me of a number of stories involving dynamite. This is the first in the series.

Episode 1 - The Lombardy Poplars

If you've been to the Woodruff family compound in Watervliet, you might wonder, "what Lombardy poplars?" There are none anymore. Their demise is the story.

Between Mother and Dad's house (now owned and occupied by Pat and Geoff Geisler) and the field where my brother Dick built his house were a number of trees. From north to south: an overly mature sugar maple out by Paw Paw Avenue, then two mature Lombardy poplars just east of the house, a big spruce tree, and finally two Catalpas.

One of the Lombardy poplars died a natural death--they are relatively short lived--and soon after the other just gave up and died too. Dad cut it down or had it cut down (I don't remember which), then decided to get rid of the stump. This was before you could get somebody to come in with a "stump grinder" to make the stump go away.

Dad's choice for stump removal was dynamite.

The problem was the trees were pretty close to the house, and Dad didn't want to splatter the house with dirt and wood chips. (I don't think Mother was around when Dad decided on dynamite.) So he came to us and asked for our favorite pup-tent to smother any debris.

We boys objected strenuously to that idea but Dad convinced us that our tent would be alright. So he dug in around the roots of the poplar stump and inserted what turned out to be an excessive number of sticks of dynamite.

He lit the fuse (we boys were in the house observing out the dining room window) and BALOOEY!! Our shredded tent sailed all the way over the house and dirt thoroughly splattered the east side of house. 

Mission accomplished, you might say--the stump was completely disintegrated--but we were not privy to the discussion Dad eventually had with Mother about the whole episode.

The First Thanksgiving Part 3 (re-posted for 2010)

(This post was originally sent as an email to family and friends in 2008.)


You all remember Squanto from grade school, don't you? He was the English-speaking Indian who helped the Pilgrims by teaching them to put a dead fish in every hill of corn they planted. He and Samoset, another English-speaking Indian, were both at the three-day harvest feast in the fall of 1621 and acted as interpreters so that all the communication between the Pilgrims and Massasoit's tribe didn't have to be confined to sign language.
 
Samoset was actually the first Indian to help the Pilgrims. In March of 1621 he walked into their compound and asked if they had any beer. He was an Abneki from Maine who had learned some pidgin English from some fishermen (and had learned to like beer). It was Samoset who talked Squanto into coming to Plymouth to help the Pilgrims. Squanto was fluent in English and had been Christianized.
 
Squanto, whose real name was Tisquantum, was a member of the Patuxet sub-group of the Wampanoag tribe who had been captured in 1605 and taken to England as sort of exotic curiosity to prove that his captors actually had been to the New World. He got back to his native land in 1612 only to be captured again in 1614 for the purpose of being sold into slavery in Spain. He was saved by some religious types who converted him to Christianity (I'm sure he preferred that to slavery in Spain). He was able to get back home again in 1619 only to find that his tribe had been decimated by a plague, probably smallpox. So it was that he was in the neighborhood and able to join up with the Pilgrims in 1621 at Samoset's behest.
 
I am now going to indulge in some more speculation about what went on during that three-day FirstThanksgiving fest. Winslow said "..whom for three dayes we entertained.." and "...amongst other recreations..." Thus it is plain that there was more going on than eating and sleeping.
 
How about the Indians playing a demonstration game of Lacrosse? The game was more than fun. It was also important to the Indians for conflict resolution, the training of young warriors and as a religious ritual. Certainly the Pilgrims would have been interested, probably fascinated.
 
And foot racing, I can imagine white girls vs Indian girls and white boys vs Indian boys. My Mother, who could outrun any of the three of us, said young girls loved to run and race despite long skirts. Maybe Joseph Rogers raced.
 
And how about the Wampanoag braves demonstrating their archery prowess with their bows and arrows? The Pilgims had probably already "...exercised their Armes..."
 
And Captain Miles Standish surely put his small troop through some close-order drill to demonstrate their marching and manual-of-arms proficiency.
 
I can also imagine a race between the Indians in their canoes and the Pilgrims in their long boat. Plymouth was located right on the water.
 
I can even imagine a wrestling match between two muscular Pilgrim youths. I think I read one time that wrestling was popular in those days. Improbably, one of the Pilgrim boys was named Wrestling Brewster.
 
Can you visualize ceremonial groups of Indians doing their shuffling tribal dances around campfires? And super-devout Pilgrims hym-singing? And a long-winded Pastor intoning    seemingly endless invocations, benedictions and prayers of Thanksgiving? I can.
 
Well, there's my story of the First Thanksgiving. I hope it adds to yours.
 
Elaine and I wish you all a happy Pratt-Woodruff Thanksgiving. 
 
The Patriarch

The First Thanksgiving Part 2 (reposted for 2010)

(This post was originally sent as an email to family and friends in 2008.)

I am trying to visualize what that first Thanksgiving at Plymouth was really like. You all have seen illustrations of immaculately dressed Pilgrim families: men, women and children, sitting around neatly set tables outdoors. So where are the Indians? And it was the Pilgrim custom for men to eat first, served by the women (I don't know where the children and adolescents fit in). Indians normally ate sitting on the ground on skins and just used their hands to eat with, and Indian men and women ate together. Some accounts have the Indians joining the Pilgrims at the tables. Did the squaws sit with the braves and Pilgrim men while the Pilgrim women still stood behind? Another question, where did the 53 Pilgrims get enough tables to seat 90 Indians? Pilgrims ate three meals a day, their big meal being at mid-day and their breakfast being leftovers. Indians just ate when they were hungry from continually simmering kettles rather than having meals (that is when they had food). And we know the Pilgrims had beer. Did they share with the Indians?

The accounts by Winslow and Bradford that I sent you yesterday are the only primary sources of information on the First Thanksgiving so everything else that has ever been written about that three-day harvest celebration is second-hand speculation at best. Thus I feel free to make up my own account (with the help of a lot of Googling) and share it with you.

My guess is that it was more like a three-day tailgate party than a sit-down banquet. I would also like to think the Wampanoag women and children were included ( Winslow said "...some nintie men..."). Probably it was a sort of long-running buffet interspersed, as Winslow indicated, with "rejoycing'", " Recreations" and discharge of "Armes". Certainly some prayers of thanksgiving.

Massasoit's hunters went out with their bows and arrows and brought down five deer (probably fat does instead of bucks in rut). They had to have been butchered and roasted outdoors. Did that much venison all get devoured in three days? Probably, there were 143 mouths to feed plus the dogs (the Pigrims had a female Mastiff and a small Spriger Spaniel that survived the Mayflower trip. Did the Indians leave their dogs back at the wigwam with no food for three days?)

In addition to venison the Indians would have contributed corn (as meal and cornbread) and beans and turkeys. Lobster, eels, clams and mussels were plentiful as were fish. Winslow indicated that the four men sent "fowling" were very sucessful. The"fowl" would have been migrating waterfowl; ducks, geese, swans and maybe cranes. They were probably shot on the water. The Pilgrims' "fowling pieces" were muzzle loading, funnel shaped matchlock shotguns, not hardly suitable for shooting birds on the fly like in skeet-shooting. Wild turkeys were very plentiful.

Wild food collected by the Pilgims in the fall season would have included grapes, both red and white, plums and rose hips. Strawberries, raspberries and blackberries would have been gone by then. I think that the huckleberries would have been gone too. Cranberries would have been avilable, but not for cranberry sauce (they had no sugar). Likewise they had pumpkins but no pumpkin pie (not only no sugar, but also no shortening or wheat flour or ovens). They collected walnuts, butternuts, hickory nuts, acorns and maybe chestnuts. Indians harvested wild onions, wild garlic and watercress to jazz up their diet.

What else did they not have that are part of traditional Thanksgiving menus today? No mashed potatoes. White potatoes were not yet in cultivation anywhere. No yams or sweet potatoes either. Sweet potatoes were rare, thought to be aphrodisiacs, affordable only by the wealthy. No apples or apple sauce. Apples were not native to North America. (Also no ham or bacon. The Pilgrims had no hogs).

So what did they have? They grew corn, onions, garlic, parsnips, collards, carrots, parsley, turnips, spinach, cabbage, pumpkins, squash, beans, sage, thyme and marjoram. Maybe radishes and lettuce. And they had salt and pepper but they didn't put a pepper shaker or mill on the table, using it only for cooking. In Pilgrim houses, all cooking was done in the fireplace.

As for table manners: As I said, the Indians used their fingers. The Pilgrims did not use forks. Their "silverware" consisted of a spoon and a knife. At that early stage they used wooden plates. It is said that they also handled food with a piece of cloth. I can't quite figure out how that went. Did they reach over and pull off a drumstick with the cloth? (I devour drumsticks with my bare hands and then use a piece of cloth to wipe my mouth and fingers).

NEXT: Communication and Recreation

The First Thanksgiving (reposted for 2010)

(This post was originally sent as an email to family and friends in 2008.)

The traditional "First Thanksgiving" was a three day feast in the early fall of 1621 at Plymouth Plantation involving 53 surviving Pilgrims and about 90 Wampanoag Indians.

Three of our ancestors were there, but unfortunately two were in the graveyard. Pratt ancestor Degory Priest and Woodruff ancestor Thomas Rogers died that first winter. Thomas' son Joseph, then an adolescent teenager, survived and participated. Pratt ancestor Phineas did not arrive until 1622. His famous run through the snow took place in the late fall of 1622. Degory's daughter Mary, who would eventually marry Phineas, was still in Holland.

William Bradford tells of their situation (modern spelling):

"They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty. For as some were employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached of which this place abounds and when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl there was a great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck of meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports."

PERSONAL NOTE: As I type this I am looking out over my back yard towards the river. The yard is snow covered and there are 17 wild turkeys foraging. One tom is displaying. Two are pecking at an ear of corn hanging by a small brass chain from a maple tree. That ear replaces one that was stripped overnight, presumably by deer. I have seven that regularly visit my yard and meadow.

Edward Winslow describes the feast (17th century spelling):

"our harvest being gotten in, our governour sent foure men on fowling, that so we might after a speciall manner rejoyce together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labours; they foure in one day killed as much fowle, as with a little helpe beside served the Company almost a weeke, at which time amongst other Recreations, we exercised our Armes. many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoyt, with some ninetie men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five Deere, which they brought to the Plantation and bestowed on our Governour, and upon the Captaine and others. And although it be not always so plentiful, as it was at this time with us, yet by goodness of God, we are so farre from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plentie."

NEXT: Menu and table manners

Canoes and Romance V - What happened to the old Pratt family canoe?

Follow-up after the "Wooden Canoe" article: 

In my 2001 article in "Wooden Canoe" I said that the pictures and text in the 1908 Morris Canoes catalog resulted in a positive identification of the old Pratt family canoe. It happened this way:

 

After months of correspondence back and forth I traveled to Bainbridge Township of Berrien County to the home of my cousin (Phil Shane) who had inherited the canoe. He took me upstairs in a building behind his house and there it was! The old Pratt family canoe. He rigged a light so that I could examine the canoe and consult the catalog reprint. Within minutes we had it and all the accessories identified. It was in remarkably good shape considering its age (probably built in 1906 or 1907), had its original canvas and the only major flaw was a stem split part way down the stern. Also there was the like-new canoe seat that my Mother sat on and the spruce-wood paddles my Dad used to propel the canoe during their honeymoon at Paw Paw Lake back in 1921. The cousin also had some good photographs in an old family album showing Pratt aunts and uncles and others in and by the canoe both on the water and on shore.

 

My visit and identification of the canoe apparently inspired the cousin for he joined the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association and enrolled in a class in wood and canvas canoe restoration at the Michigan Maritime Museum in South Haven. The class was taught by Scott Barkdoll, proprietor of Skywoods Canoe, an expert canoe restorer who has since moved his shop to Vermont. Under Scott's tutelage he repaired the split stem and re-canvased the old Morris. What else he did I do not know. So far as I can tell, the job was not finished when he died unexpectedly..

 

He and I had planned on co-authoring an article for "Wooden Canoe", as a sequel to the Eisenhower article, telling the story of its restoration. A planned feature of the article was to be a photograph of the restored Morris floating on Paw Paw Lake again after nearly a century. Out of concerns for his widow's feelings I didn't make a direct contact after I learned of his death but eventually I raised the question of the fate of the canoe with other cousins. All I really learned was that the canoe had gone to an adopted son. My current hope is to someday see the restoration finished and to see it float again on Paw Paw Lake with family members paddling it with those Style 2 Morris spruce-wood paddles.

 

I have offered to pay for transportation of the canoe to and from a professional canoe restorer and pay whatever it costs to finish the restoration, so far with zero response.

Jim Woodruff 
thetopologist 
On the Grand River 
in Delta Township

Allen Woodruff, baseball, and chewing tobacco

Daughter Karen and son-in-law Ken are attending an event at Michigan State University today - the "First Pitch" dinner. Among other activities at the event, Jake Boss, Jr. (the team's new coach and son of their friend Jake) will introduce the 2009 Spartan baseball team. 

I asked Karen if she remembered the story about her grandfather playing baseball at (not for) MAC (Michigan Agricultural College). She didn't, so I recounted it for her in an email, as follows:

Your Grandfather Woodruff (Oberlin 1920) was a good athlete. When he went to Oberlin (the first college to ever enroll coeds) his Mother had notions that he might take up the ministry...Oberlin was THE Congregational college.(This is the same Allen Woodruff who was driving a milk wagon in the whorehouse district of Denver when he was a Junior in high school...) Obviously the minister thing didn't take.

 

In those days when you entered Oberlin you had to take a pledge that you wouldn't drink or smoke or commit any other various and sundry sins. Dad and his roommate took note of the fact that the pledge didn't specifically prohibit chewing so they bought some chewing tobacco and put a big crock in the center of their room and took up chewing and spitting.

 

Dad played tackle on a very good Oberlin football team (once caught a pass for a touchdown on a trick tackle-eligible play). His teammates were so good that in 1921 they beat Ohio State, the last Ohio college to do so.

 

In baseball he was a very good hitter but a not-so-hot fielder. Under those circumstances the coach usually assigns the good hitter to play right field where he can do the least amount of damage. Also in those days professional baseball players chewed while they played. Ken can probably remember when they still did.

 

One time I asked Dad what was the hardest he ever hit a ball. Without hesitation he replied that it was the one that went right back to the mound and hit the pitcher in the forehead and knocked him to the ground.

 

Anyway, this one spring Oberlin traveled to East Lansing to play MAC.They played on Old College Field whereMSU still plays (though they have just gussied it up I understand). Dad was in right field as usual and nothing was coming his way so he decides to have a chew. He was right handed which means that his baseball glove was on his left hand. (The chewing tobacco is in his left rear pocket). So he slips his hand out of the glove and reaches into the hip pocket for the chaw when CRACK! The batter hits the ball to right field and Dad starts after the flyball but his left hand (which should be in the glove) is around the chew like an eagle's claws on a fish.

 

Of course he might have flubbed the flyball under the best of conditions but trying for it barehanded with his right hand while running with his left hand in his rear pocket it was hopeless. The ball bounced off his hand and  dropped to the ground and I don't know how many runners advanced but the hitter was credited with reaching first on an error.

 

By that time in the telling I was laughing so hard I don't remember Dad telling what the coach's and team's reaction was but Oberlin lost the game. I hope by more than one run.

Canoes and Romance

My series of emails on Low-Tech Canoeing was conceived as a sort of audience warm up for the upcoming Ultimate Hugh Heward Challenge when I will be reporting more-or-less daily on the progress of the Challengers on their journey from Detroit to Chicago following Hugh Heward's 1790 trek. I figured that this process might shake down my "Canoeist" Email list from last year's Charlie Parmelee saga to those who really give a hoot. I was wrong. Instead of the list shrinking it has been growing as there appears to be a lot more interest in old time canoeing than I had expected. Thus encouraged, I am trying a series on Canoes and Romance. This won't be nearly as historical or technical as LaSalle or Heward or elm-bark canoes. With my usual caveat that you know where the delete key is and can get off the list by merely asking, here we go:

Here is my article published in Issue 103, February 2001, of "Wooden Canoe", the journal of the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association. The cover shows a bride and groom on a lake in a wood and canvas canoe:

 

           ROMANCING WITH IKE IN AN OLD TOWN---OR WAS IT A MORRIS?

                                         By Jim Woodruff

 

In his book "At Ease, Stories I Tell My Friends", Dwight Eisenhower describes his 1911 trip from his hometown of Abilene, Kansas, to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point where he was to begin his military career:

 

"For the trip I planned to take about a week, stopping off in Chicago to see a girl...and in Ann Arbor to visit my brother Ed. At the University of Michigan, Ed was just completing his second year. While he was finishing his final exams, I walked around the campus and was impressed by the elaborate educational institution.

 

That evening he hired a canoe and we set out on the river---I believe it was the Huron---with a couple of college girls. We took along a phonograph and played the popular songs. Paddling in the moon light we passed canoe loads of other students enjoying the pleasant June evening. Afterwards, we paid for the canoe and walked the girls back to their dormitories...this was, up to that moment, the most romantic evening I had ever known."

 

One can't help but wonder whether Ike's unnamed date realized in later years that she had enjoyed a pleasant evening canoeing with a future five-star general and President of the United States. On later occasions did she recall that night upon hearing songs which were then popular, such as "Sweet Adeline", "In the Good Old Summer Time", or "My Gal Sal"?

 

Searching through the literature about the University of Michigan provides plentiful evidence that canoeing was a very popular recreational activity in Ann Arbor during the first two decades of the twentieth century, especially for dating. It was not unusual for University of Michigan senior annuals (called Michiganensian) to contain illustrations of romantic Huron River canoeing scenes.

 

Next: The song "Out in My Old Town Canoe".

Low Tech Canoeing - Post Script

Don't forget the Quiet Water Symposium Saturday March 7 at Michigan State University. Here is the link: http://www.quietwatersymposium.org/

The Ultimate Hugh Heward Challenge starts at Belle Isle in Detroit on April 17; the annual Hugh Heward Challenge 50 miler takes place on Saturday April 25. You can find more information about the two events on the Kruger Canoes blog and the Verlen Kruger Memorial website. Here are the links:

http://krugercanoes.blogspot.com/

http://www.verlenkrugermemorial.org/

Low Tech Canoeing X - Restoration of the Old Town Otca

The restoration of the 1921 Old Town Otca:

 

At some point while my son Jim was growing up I unilaterally decided that the restoration of the family's Old Town canoe would make a good father-son project so we drove down to Watervliet from our home in Lansing, loaded the canoe on our  car top carrier (tied down very securely) and hauled it back to Lansing where we hung it up in the carport. (Wife Elaine didn't think it was particularly decorative hanging there in full view from the street.)

 

So father and son had at it. After removing the gunwhales and keel and carefully saving all the brass screws etc we stripped off the old damaged canvas and undid my brothers' repairs. Thus made naked, we were able to examine the hull and determine what repairs and replacements were necessary. We ordered replacement ribs and planking etc. through a local Old Town dealer but the prices quoted were too much for me to justify given the state of my young family's finances and my son's rapidly diminishing interest in the whole idea. I now know that the prices quoted by Old Town were really quite reasonable.

 

Discouraged, I finally hauled the hull to Watervliet and hung it up in the old family barn and put the  stuff we had removed up in my attic. The years went by, the son grew up, I lost one brother and the other became incapacitated, so we decided to give the pieces of the Otca to someone who would fix it up and find it a good home.

 

I first met Scott Barkdoll of Skywoods Canoe Company at a Quiet Water Symposium at Michigan State University. He makes a business out of building, restoring, buying and selling wood and canvas canoes. He used to be at Honor, Michigan, but now he is located in Vermont. I told him the story of the old Otca and offered it to him for free if he would restore it and find it a good home. So he and a helper went to Watervliet and got the hull out of the barn and I gave him the parts I had in the attic.

 

Eventually I got a message from him:

 

"Hi James: I have been terribly delinquent in letting you know that just before we left Michigan the 18-foot Otca sold to a very nice woman with a cottage in Hessel. It was fully restored for her last year and painted white with a blue Greek spiral and is a stunning canoe which will be loved and used--and will stay in Michigan. She would probably love to talk to you...I suspect she will love the stories that go with that canoe."

 

That "very nice woman" turned out to be from an "Old Money" Indianapolis family with a fancy summer home in the Upper Peninsula's Les Cheneaux Islands in Lake Huron where the boathouses are bigger than the cottages most other places. She subsequently gave the Octa to another "Old Money" Les Cheneaux summer home owner only from Virginia. I contacted her to be sure she had the canoe's history and asked for a photo of it in its new home. She thanked me for the story of the canoe but I have yet to get a picture. Nevertheless I am content.

 

This is the end of the Low-Tech Canoeing series. If you have enjoyed reading them a fraction as much as I did writing them, I am doubly content.

Low Tech Canoeing IX - What happened to the Old Town?

The history of the Watervliet Old Town:

 

The Watervliet Old Town canoe is an 18 foot Otca Model built in Old Town, Maine, in 1921. (That's the year before I was born). My family bought it from a family who had a home on Paw Paw Lake in Berrien County, Michigan. The owner was an executive in the local paper mill and his daughter was a couple grades ahead of me in high school. It was acquired in the mid 40s while I was a student at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado (where they brew Coors beer).

 

After serving in World War II (Army Engineers in the Pacific, Okinawa and Korea) I returned to Mines on the GI Bill and graduated as a Geological Engineer in 1948. During that last school year I started planning my big canoe trip and talked two of my fraternity brothers (Beta Theta Pi) into postponing going out into the cold, cruel world of career and work to go along. My younger brother, a Navy veteran and a student at Michigan State, was to be the fourth member of our expedition.

 

I have told you the story of our 1948 canoe trip in Western Ontario in earlier Emails in this series.

 

This was a once-in-a-lifetime trip for one who fell in love shortly afterward and had to spend the next decades making a living and raising a family. Ned and Ken, my two fraternity brother companions, went on to careers in Mining Engineering all over the world and never canoed again so far as I know.

 

The next spring after the Canadian trip the Paw Paw River was in flood, so hot-shot canoeist that I considered myself to be, I decided to run it solo in the Otca. I put in at Paw Paw Lake, and sitting on the rear with the bow in the air I am off down the Paw Paw River towards the paper mill where there is a backwater behind a couple low-head dams. I passed up  the so-called Upper Dam and when I got to the Lower Dam there was enough water flowing over it that I thought I could shoot it which I did without even slowing down. I managed to avoid the back curl but in trying to make a sharp left turn just below the dam the canoe overturned ejecting me (still no PFD) and headed downstream, upside down and alone.

 

Well I got tangled up underwater in some submerged tree branches. I thought to myself "This is a stupid way to die, drowning less than a river mile from the house where you grew up!" (The thought took a lot less time than the telling). Obviously I extricated myself or you wouldn't be reading this. I caught up with the canoe, pulled it out on the bank and emptied it, got in and finished the trip. I landed in the flooded woods behind the house and got my brother to help me carry the canoe up to the barn and hang it up. I don't remember what I did for a paddle but I always had a spare lashed into the canoe so maybe that's what I used.

 

 This is the first time I have ever told the whole story. There's no one left to give me hell any more. My grandfather's oldest brother drowned in the Paw Paw River on the 4th of July, 1869, at age eighteen..

 

We used the canoe on short trips on Michigan rivers. Each trip had a good story, like the duck hunting trip down the Paw Paw when I fired at a duck at a 90 degree angle to the long axis of the canoe causing it to tilt and dump my brother and his pet 16 gage shotgun into the river. Then there was the a trip down the Manistee where we froze our butts

in inadequate GI blanket sleeping bags and ended up standing around a fire all night.

 

Then there was the not-so-funny story of my two brothers coming home from a goose hunting trip trip without adequately tieing down the Otca on their car top. It flew off and followed their Chevrolet upside down down Michigan Highway 140 at about 50 miles per hour. Repairs were made that made the canoe useable again but really ugly.

 

NEXT: Restoration of the Old Town.

Low Tech Canoeing VIII - Wind and Smoke

Continuing about my 1948 canoe trip from "Wooden Canoe":

 

" Grandpa complained that the one thing they could count on throughout the trip was that the wind would always be in their faces, no matter from which direction they were paddling. The same phenomenon held true for smoke from campfires---always in the eyes."

 

We only got really lost once. It was after a day in civilization. When we reached the northernmost point of our journey we had arrived at the little wide-place-in-the road on TransCanada Highway 17 known as Wabigoon. We spent a short time in a Hudson's Bay Post replenishing our provisions and a long time in an Official Ontario Purveyor of Beer. We returned late to our last campsite which we had named "Slimy Island" because that's what it was. Next morning we are off on the return which, after some upstream paddling and a couple of portages, will find us in the Turtle River, a tributary of Rainy Lake. In a big marshy bay we find what we think is the right river flowing in and confidently head upstream. It is extremely serpentine thus masking what direction we were really heading. The hangovers from the previous day's imbibing didn't help. Late in the day we came to a bridge where no bridge should be. We have inadvertently arrived back at the TransCanada Highway an unknown number of miles east of where we spent the day before. Determined not to waste an entire day we decide to skip camping and spend the night going back downstream to where we started the day. So with the bow man snoozing and the stern man steering we drifted all the way back to our point of departure. Daylight enables us to find the right stream and we are on our way again. Today I used Google Earth and MapQuest to go back and relive that misadventure.

 

" The year 1948 was back in what Grandpa called the good old days when smoking was fun and guilt-free. The veterans' habits had been nurtured during the war by the availability of cigarettes at 5 cents per pack in the PX or ship's store and free in field rations. The point of his telling about their low-cost addiction was to try to explain away why, after leaving  their last pack of cigarettes on a rock towards the end of the trip, two grown men would paddle back several miles to retrieve the fags and travel an equal distance to get back to where they turned around. Grandpa said that one consolation was that one of these legs was downwind."

 

Cigarette adds used to dominate magazines and radio like prescription drug commercials and two-page ads dominate TV and magazines now. My Dad smoked Camels so that was what I learned on. I didn't start until I was 19 and had a hard time with coughing and hacking but I stuck with it until it took. "I'd Walk a Mile for a Camel" their ad went. "Lucky Strike Green Has Gone to War" their ad said when they changed from green packs to white to save chromium. "Blow a Little My Way" said the seductive girl to the Chesterfield smoker.

 

"It was four skinny, hard muscled, sun tanned, mosquito bitten, unshaven, smelly canoeists who successfully and happily arrived back at Rainy Lake. Ken, Ned and Jim, freshly graduated from engineering school, went on to start their careers and John went back to college."

 

John and Ken are gone now but Ned is still around, living in a fancy retirement community on the Atlantic. The Old Town Otca still exists, one year older than I am, but that's another story.

 

NEXT: What happened to the Old Town?

Low Tech Canoeing VII - Portaging

Continuing  about our 1948 canoe trip from "Wooden Canoe".

 

"In portaging as well as in paddling the two teams were well matched. The huskier team carried the heavier Old Town and the smaller team carried the lighter Penn Yan. All portages were two man carries. No one had the skill to carry an 18 footer solo.

 

"Attempts to emulate the Indians by carrying gear with a tumpline over the forehead failed miserably. They could not stand the pain in the neck caused by the weight of the packs. The four college guys had to admit that volleyball, downhill skiing, or elbow bending does not develop neck muscles. The best pack turned out to be a war surplus ski trooper rucksack. It rode on the hips, had a low center of gravity, and had room to lash bulky gear on top."

 

Another pack we used was a war surplus bent-plywood packboard that the Infantry used to carry mortar parts or the Quartermasters used to backpack ammunition or jerry cans. It worked OK but you always had to lash or unlash the load. We also had a traditional frame and canvas packboard. We placed the packboards in the bottom of the canoes to keep the loads out of the wet. We used GI ponchos to wear in the rain, cover the load or string up as a kitchen fly. Let's put it this way, most everything an infantryman wore or used to live and fight in the open was useful to the canoeist traveling in the wild, GI mess kits for instance. Of course we didn't have to wear helmets or carry rifles.

 

The cover photograph of the June 1997 issue of "Wooden Canoe" that carried Adam's story showed Ned and Ken portaging the Penn Yan upside down over their heads. It shows that for shoes they wore regular sneakers. Brother John wore war surplus canvas jungle boots from the South Pacific. I wore L.L.Bean canvas canoe shoes. I think the L.L.Bean shoes were best.

 

                               REMARKS ABOUT PORTAGES

 

These are from my narrative/monograph "Locating Michigan's Old Canoe Portages":

 

In an article in the August 1893 issue of "Harper's New Monthly Magazine", Frederic Remington, famed for his western art, tells of a canoe trip on an Ontario river:

 

"...a mile of impossible rapids made a 'carry' or 'portage' necessary. Slinging our packs and taking the seventy-pound canoe on our shoulders, we started down the trail. The torture of this sort of thing is as exquisitely perfect in its way as any ever devised. A trunk porter in a summer hotel simply does for a few seconds what we do by the hour, and as far as reconciling this to an idea of physical enjoyment, it cannot be done."  At the end of the portage he concludes, "...and it is with a little thrill of joy and the largest sigh of relief possible when we again settle the canoe in the water."

 

The late Canadian canoeist/artist Bill Mason echoes this sentiment in his beautiful video Water Walker: "Anybody who tells you portaging* is fun is either gotta be a liar or crazy. Now the walk back for the second load, that's the part I like."

* He pronounced it port-ta'-zhing with with the "a" like in "tag".

 

Deep River Jim said: "Nothing feels quite so good as the rest at the end of the carry." 

 

NEXT: Wind and smoke

Low Tech Canoeing VI - Shooting Rapids

Continuing from the "Wooden Canoe" article about my 1948 canoe trip in Western Ontario.

 

"Shooting rapids was a thrill in more ways than one. It never dawned on them that they should have life jackets (this was before these were called "personal floatation devices"). Deep River Jim's book didn't mention them and Lloyd's Emporium didn't say anything either. Their whitewater training was strictly on-the-job when they started encountering rapids far, far out in the wilderness. Grandpa said that if they really screwed up and need to be rescued, they intended to set an island on fire in the hope that the Canadian authorities would fly over to see what's going on.

 

"The Otca and the Penn Yan performed admirably in the rapids (no longer catamaraned of course). They slid off rocks that their drivers weren't skilled enough to avoid with hardly any damage beyond scratched paint. Even when their drivers involuntarily bailed out, the canoes continued to run the rapids (upside down or right side up depending on what caused the paddlers' departure). Then the canoes would wait patiently in some downstream eddy until the swimming or wading voyageurs arrived. 'The performance of these canoes was a true testament to the practicability of wood and canvas,' said Grandpa. According to him, the most difficult decision when facing a rapids often was not so much whether to run it, but whether to unload the canoe and carry the gear around. A bad decision in this regard meant wet sleeping bags for a couple of nights and the scorn and/or pity of one's companions."

 

We didn't need maps or a guidebook to know when we were going to face a rapids. You could hear the roar well upstream and the louder the roar, the worse the rapids. We would get to shore upstream of the rapids and scout them out. The really bad ones and the falls we would portage around. The ones we decided to run we had to choose whether to run them loaded or empty. Each canoe dumped once. When brother John and I dumped we were empty, having portaged out gear around. When Ken and Ned dumped, they were loaded thus causing a delay until they could get their sleeping bags etc. dried out.

 

When you get dumped from your canoe in a rapids the thing to do to avoid serious injury is to go down on your back feet first using your arms out like a double-bladed kayak paddle.When John and I dumped it was because we didn't hit a triangular standing wave on center. I can still replay in my mind slow-motion that tilt and dump.

 

Happily none of us got hurt on the trip. We were  prepared. We had a good first aid kit and were well trained. Advanced First Aid was part of the curriculum at the Colorado School of Mines. I suppose that's because we were expected to graduate to hazardous jobs. Ken and Ned had Mining Engineer degrees and did, in fact, pursue mining engineering careers, mostly in foreign countries. John had already had a ship sunk out from under him in the Pacific so he was no virgin when it came to swimming for it. I was just a self-confident ex-Army Engineer, used to command. I was the acknowledged leader of the expedition but my companions irreverently called me "Shallow Puddle Jim" instead of my preferred title, "Deep River Jim").

 

We were also prepared if it came to damage to our canoes  We had a repair kit that  included canvas and glue for patches, copper tacks and fine wire. For anything major that was fixable we had a good axe and knives, the woods were full of black spruce trees for gum, birches for bark, and downed seasoned wood. Spruce gum mixed with a little bacon grease would give us the same material that the Heward party used for "gumming" their birch bark canoes back in 1790. These days we would carry a roll of duct tape, but in those days only furnace men knew about duct tape. If we wrecked one canoe we would have doubled up, shed some gear, and hurried on downstream. If we had wrecked both canoes, there was always the Set-the-Island-on-Fire alternative.

 

On the Turtle River fishing was so good it was delaying us so we adopted a rule: No more than two casts above each rapids or falls and two below. The walleyes were usually above and big old northerns below laying in wait for whatever came through. Of course we would release everything except maybe a couple of walleyes for supper.

(Photo is of painting "Shooting the Rapids" by Winslow Homer, 1902.  © Brooklyn Museum/Corbis)

 

NEXT: Portaging

Low Tech Canoeing V - Journals

Like Hugh Heward in 1790, I kept a journal of my 1948 canoe trip only I called it a Canoe Trip Log. After studying Hugh's elegant journal I am a little ashamed of mine. Here are some samples: 

 

"Sat. 30 July: O515 left civilization between railroad and power line. Paddled 1/2 hour to Homestretch Island. Lost big muskie by horsing...caught 16" pike (Northern pike, the natives called them "jackfish") 10 minutes later Ned caught big pike at island. Ate breakfast at 1000. Canoes lashed together for rough water. Rained in at Hook Island .Long haul in rough water (We  are on Rainy Lake) to Standingstone Point. Spent night. Caught pike".

 

" Windbound Sun July 31 Took refuge on island off point. Noon meal on island...swim. Camp Sun night..2 pike".

 

 "0900 on way Mon AM. (Aug 1) Big bass..largemouth. Hector (Ken) caught pike. Stopped for lunch. John no longer virgin...his first pike. Camped Mon night on Sphene Lake after  portage from Rainy Lake.  (RAIN), Hamburgers, fried onions, macaroni and cheese and cocoa for supper...saw two deer."

 

 "Picture #4 at Devils Cascade, #5 at Sphene Lake. Picture #6 at first portage of Manitou River. Camped above rapids after 2 portages, 3 wades & 2 paddle-through rapids.

Two canoes and four guys passed us. They are going to go down the Albany."

 

Very soon I tightened up the herky-jerky narrative and quit counting fish and describing menus. In re-reading this log I have enjoyed reliving some of those upstream struggles of six decades ago.

 

Here is a sample of Hugh's journal. On April 23 the party (Hugh and seven French-Canadian paddlers in two 20 foot birchbark canoes) encountered some Indians spearing sturgeon (near present day Onondaga). He called them "an ill looking band of about 12". They traded some tobacco for a sturgeon and took off when they saw more Indians coming. They ran the rapids at present day Eaton Rapids and kept going and camped probably about where Burchfield County Park is today.          

 

"Saturday Apl 24th 1790. Refited our Cannots with Gum & set off   passed a Rapid in about an hour (Dimondale) after which high broken Land & some pine Trees   the banks of Red land from thence came to a River from the East (Red Cedar) & a little lower two cabins of  Indians from Sagana (North Lansing) they were providing Cannots for their Departure  the course to this Time nearly Nore West by Nore  from thence high broken Land & some pine & Cedar   about 11 oClock came to an island in the Middle of the River & a long Rapid & afterwards another Island about Mid Day. (Delta Mills) Dined  the Course West Nore West & came to another Island  afterwards three Small Islands and some Pine trees on each Side of the River & high Rocks on the North (Grand Ledge) & a small Run of Water from the South (Sandstone Creek) after which another small Island & and a long and pleasant drift of an equal and strong Current   the Banks high but the Beach level & Gravelly bottom to a long but not very strong Rapid & to another Island the Course West by North to again high Banks to the North to another Island  from thence to four others all together   following from here a high Sandy Bank with some pine Trees on the south side after which a Large Island & two small ones following   afterwards three Small Islands & two small meadows to North this last Course nearly West  heavy Wood on all Sides Encamped Opposite an Island" (In Portland State Game Area near Sebawa Corners).

 

I took the time to insert punctuation at the logical places when I was doing my research in 1989 and 1990. That made it easier to follow his route on maps and along the river.

 

This is the day's paddle commemorated by the annual 50 mile Hugh Heward Challenge. This year's Challenge runs from Dimondale to Portland on Saturday April 25 2009.

 

NEXT: Shooting rapids.

Low Tech Canoeing IV - The Food

Sustenance and sanitation on our 1948 canoe trip (from the "Wooden Canoe" article):

"Their food guide was Deep River Jim's 'Grub list for a Two-Weeks' Cruise,' very heavy on bacon, flour, macaroni and beans. On Lloyd's Emporium's recommendation they added hardtack, dried fruit, Canadian canned butter, sugar butter and Cadbury's Carmello Chocolate Bars [the first time I had ever run into Cadbury's. I thought they were great, still do]. Their food supply, supplemented by unbelievably good fishing, turned out to be quite adequate and nourishing but they vastly underestimated their appetite for sweets. Exertion-driven energy demands and a shameful failure of self discipline caused them to deplete a two week's supply of sugar, candy, jam and syrup in five days."

"They were thus facing many days of desperation and possible sucrose starvation when a minor miracle occurred. They rounded a point on what they believed to be a wilderness lake when lo and behold, there was a fly-in fishing lodge with two good-looking Chicago girls in bathing suits sitting on the end of the dock! Grandpa said that it was indicative of the state of their desperation that they were as interested in the prospect of acquiring sugar as they were in the girls".

We prepared food pretty much the same way Hugh and his crew did in 1790. We cooked over an open fire and used mostly "squaw wood" for fuel. Squaw wood is firewood that you can gather without using tools. I had a good lightweight L.L.Bean Hudson Bay axe but seldom used it. I still have it. It is always part of my display at the annual Quiet Water Symposium. We had no stove, no fuel container, no propane, no butane, no Coleman fuel, no freeze-dried foil-packed meals, no saw, no fire pan, no reflector oven, no folding water bucket or cooler. We did have lots of waterproofed matches. We weren't up to flint and steel which is probably what Hugh and the Canadians used. After all, they carried flintlock muskets.

Hugh's crew probably cooked in copper trade kettles. We used a GI surplus nesting aluminum kettle kit topped by a steel fry-pan/cover with a folding handle. The biggest kettle served as our water bucket with the smaller ones for cooking. Our water came straight out of the river or lake, no filter, no chemicals.

We didn't have any trouble with critters getting into our food except for one morning I woke up and there was a skunk going through our stuff. You can be sure I laid there quietly so as to not disturb it until it was satisfied and wandered off. We just had to trim a little bacon.

Traveling through essentially endless wilderness, personal sanitation was no problem. We washed and bathed in the lakes or streams, although the water was too cold except for the briefest of swims. When nature called we would just slip out into the woods and scrape away a spot in the leaves or pine needles. We didn't even carry a shovel to make "cat holes". Our route was little travelled. We only saw one other canoe party the entire trip. Additionally, our jungle hammocks gave us the ability to camp where no tent-campers could. Contrast this with canoeing in the Boundary Waters now where you can only camp at designated sites with box latrines. Or contrast it with the way that Charlie Parmelee travels in his Kruger Sea Wind. He prides himself on no-trace camping, using a fire pan under his stove and some sort of traveling "Thunder Mug"---I've never actually seen it---so that the only sign of his presence might be some matted-down grass where his tent was pitched. He can even sleep in his canoe.

Here is Deep River Jim's "Grub List for two persons on a two-weeks' cruise into wilderness country":

6 lbs. Bacon 2 lbs. Cheese 1/2 lb. Cocoa

6 lbs. Flour 2 lbs. Dried Lima Beans 4 lbs.Corned Beef Hash

3 lbs. Onions 2 lbs. Dried Prunes 2 lbs. Powdered Milk

3 lbs. Cornmeal 1 lb. Dried Apricots 3 lbs. Baked Beans (cans)

3 lbs. Sugar 1 lb. Pea Soup Powder 3 lbs. Tomatoes (cans)

2 lbs. Raisins 1 lb. Chipped Beef 2 lbs. Corn (cans)

2 lbs. Rice 1 lb.Dehydrated Potatoes 2 lbs. Macaroni

The only carried food mentioned in Hugh Heward's journal was pork and corn. Catching, netting or spearing fish would have been easy and they had muskets for killing game. The French explorer LaSalle in his account about walking across the Lower Peninsula in the spring of 1680 tells of shooting stag (deer), bear and turkey for food. They carried flintlocks too.

NEXT: Journals

Low Tech Canoeing III - The Stupid White Men

Heading north: Continuing from the "Wooden Canoe" article  about my 1948 canoe trip in Western Ontario:

 

"The Indians who buzzed by them in gasoline powered freight canoes didn't think the guys were foolish they thought they were stupid for paddling when outboard motors were available.. Grandpa said that from then on they called themselves "the stupid white men".

 

"The Indians that were encountered were mostly families traveling in 20-foot wood and canvas canoes with square sterns for their outboards. Usually these canoes were double-ribbed with half ribs between each pair of full ribs."

 

"The year this trip took place was well beyond the era of birch-bark canoes but a little before the time when Grumman made it possible for canoeists to aluminum-plate every other wet rock in the north country".

 

"Rainy Lake is big, windy water to eighteen foot canoes so they turned the two canoes into a catamaran by lashing them together outrigger fashion with two sturdy saplings. This system provided excellent stability. Four paddlers gave them good power and it didn't matter on which side Ken paddled."

 

(I Emailed Valerie Fons and asked when Verlen developed his catamaran system. She says: "The catamaran poles were part of Verlen's design early on. His prototype Loon had holes drilled in the deck combing for the fiberglass pole to fit into. Ultimate Canoe Challenge may have used a pole with Steve--don't know. Verlen used the pole with my canoe when we paddled Baja, The pole system developed into a pontoon design for the Eddie Bauer Mississippi River Challenge where we used a single hull and put floats out for stability in big Mississippi water.").

 

(Valerie lives on Washington Island between Green Bay and Lake Michigan in Wisconsin. She has adopted six kids. She and Joe run Bread & Water, a restaurant, lodging and kayak tour business. Her big deal this summer is the Washington Island Canoe and Kayak Race, Expedition and Symposium.  She needs a kayak tour leader--a paid position. Also a cook for the kitchen at Bread & Water--hopefully someone who can paddle too).

 

Continuing: "Army surplus jungle hammocks were used in lieu of tents and worked out very well. Jungle hammocks have sewn-in mosquito netting and waterproof roofs. All you need for a camp site are a few trees and a place to build a fire.  Since no level ground was required their choice of camp sites was practically unlimited."

 

(You had to do a good job of tying your hammock to the trees as Ned learned the first night when his hammock sagged and dipped his butt in a puddle. We used war surplus down and feather sleeping bags. They worked fine. As I learned on a subsequent trip on the Manistee the GI blanket sleeping bag is way too cold.

 

NEXT: Food

Low Tech Canoeing II - Trip Planning

Planning for my 1948 canoe trip (from the "Wooden Canoe" article):

 

"Their trip planning guide was an autographed copy of Deep River Jim's Wilderness Trail Book published in 1935 by the Open Road Pioneers Club for Boys."

 

The Open Road for Boys was a monthly boys' magazine encouraging the outdoor life published from 1919 into the 50s. It cost 10 cents per copy.

 

 "Of course this was well before Cliff Jacobson was dispensing canoe trip wisdom in books and magazines. In fact, it was probably before Cliff was born.

 

"After months of planning and days of driving the intrepid foursome arrived at Ft. Francis, Ontario, across the border from International Falls, Minnesota."

 

...with the Old Town on top of my Dad's 1940 Chrysler Windsor and the Penn Yan on a boat trailer behind.

 

 "There they decided to patronize Lloyd's Tourist Emporium-Canoes, Blankets, Tents, Indian Guides and Provision to stock up on food, advice and any needed equipment that they hadn't bought at the War Surplus stores back home."

 

"Their intention was to paddle the length of Rainy Lake and by a series of lakes and straits, and one long portage across the height-of-land, work their way into the Hudson Bay drainage and re-provision at a Hudson's Bay Post. The return was to be upstream on a different chain of lakes and streams to two small portages, which would take them to the headwaters of the Turtle River, then down the Turtle and back into Rainy Lake."

 

I worked out this route using Canada Department of Mines and Resouces maps which I had sent for that showed in detail all lakes and streams as well as roads and railroads. In those days Ontario was much better mapped than Michigan. Also in those days there was but one east-west road between the international border and the Arctic Ocean, Ontario Highway 17. Our north-bound destination was Wabigoon on that highway.

 

"The outfitter told them the trip they planned was dangerous and that they were foolish to go without guides. The two veterans concluded that waves on Rainy Lake or rapids on the Turtle River couldn't be as dangerous as a foxhole on Okinawa or a Destroyer Escort under Kamikaze attack in the East China Sea. Ned and Ken just didn't know any better. So guideless they headed into the wilderness."

 

NEXT: The stupid white men.

Low Tech Canoeing

I suppose I sound like an old man nostalgic for the " Good Old Days" but I am glad I did my canoeing before GPS was invented. It must take away a lot of the thrill of wilderness travel when you know you can't get lost.

 

This is a re-telling for the Ultimate Hugh Heward Challenge 09 audience of the story of my 1948 canoe trip in Western Ontario which was first published in "Wooden Canoe", the journal of the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association, in its June 1997 issue. The article was entitled "Grandfather's Collegiate Canoe Trip". The author was my grandson Adam Tury.

 

I will Email this in what my nieces call "digestible bites" to those who were last year's recipients of my almost-daily reports on Charlie Parmelee's Ultimate Hugh Heward Challenge progress paddling and wading and portaging from Lake Erie to Lake Michigan. If you want off the list or know anyone who would like to receive this year's reports let me know. Once th UHHC 09 gets underway I will send out daily reports.

 

Canoe and eqipment-wise in 1948 we were much more like the 1790 Hugh Heward party than the Challengers who will be paddling and portaging across Michigan's Lower Peninsula this Spring. Grumman was just converting one of its World War II fighter-plane factories to the manufacture of aluminum canoes. Royalex and Kevlar had not yet been invented, graphite was for pencil lead, bicyle wheels were for bicyles not canoe carts, and what I might call the Kruger Revolution in canoe design was still decades in the future. In fact, this trip took place 15 years before Verlen first paddled a canoe of any kind.

 

"Once upon a time four college guys went on a canoe trip to Western Ontario. Two were veterans (war veterans, not canoe trip veterans) and two were not. I shall call these collegiate voyageurs Ken, Ned, John and Jim.

 

Ken and Ned purchased an 18 foot Guide Model Penn Yan wood and canvaas canoe from a War Surplus store for the trip and sold it back to the same store afterwards. They were both of rather sleight stature and quite inexperienced.

 

Jim and John, the veterans, had their family's 18 foot wood and canvas Old Town Otca which had been built in 1921 The Otca had spent most of its previous career on a local resort lake surrounded by cottages and big-band dance pavillions, and where the only wild things were the Saturday night parties. Jim and John were both over six feet tall and had paddling experience.

 

I turned out to be an even match. The Penn Yan had a low bow and stern and was sleek and light in weight. The Otca had the clssic high ends and was heavy with many layers of paint and varnish. Thus the two smaller, inexperienced canoeists in thei fast Penn Yan kept right up with the two larger, stronger, more experienced paddlers with their heavy weight wind bucker. Actually the Penn Yan traveled more miles than the Old Town because Ken didn't believe in the J-stroke. He insisted on switching sides to steer when he was in the stern, a practice which resulted in a lot of zigging znd zagging by the Penn Yan.

 

NEXT: Trip planning

The Courtship of Jim & Elaine 2.2 - The Engagement

I calculate that overall we had 81 Saturday night dates. Somewhere about the 60th I think it was I started to get antsy. I had casually mentioned marriage, had tried out the name Elaine Woodruff to myself and thought it had a good ring to it, and on an impulse had bought a diamond ring in Joliet where I was living in a hotel. I had showed the ring to brother John to show that my intentions toward Elaine were honorable. Now how to get Elaine on board with the idea?

One Saturday night in the Fall of 1950 while saying good night I told her that I wanted to be more than her Saturday night date and since we didn't seem to be making any progress I wasn't coming back. Well that got her attention and it wasn't long before she was wearing my ring (and getting it appraised) and putting announcements in the St. Joe Herald-Press, the Benton Harbor News-Palladium and the Watervliet Record. I have already told you about our wedding.