The joys of an aluminum canoe
I'm not joking. As loud, bright, and uncomfortable as those old Alumacrafts and Grummans are, there's just something about them. Maybe it's how wide, flat, and stable they are. Or how their stability allows the sterner (in flat water anyway) to sit on the very end of the boat, using the stern seat as a foot rest. I'm sure quite a bit of the "joy" is nostalgia on my part, but these are the workhorses of the BWCA, used by summer camps, outfitters, scout troops, and a lot of others. There's also something cheerful about the flash of aluminum across a wide lake.
Don't get me wrong -- I would take kevlar or royalex over an aluminum canoe most days -- but I do think aluminum has its place and deserves respect.
photo credit: Photo Story (cc)
posted by
bluecanoe at
9:33 AM --- link and comments
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3)
3 Comments:
I have a 17 ft Michicraft aluminum "tanker" that I bought in '75. It weighs 85 pounds, and it's just about bulletproof. It's been dragged over more logjams and beaver dams, down rivers, across swamps, lakes, ponds, you name it. Sure, compared to our Wenona Mn-II or our Oldtown Penobscot it's a tub, but it was my first canoe, and serves me faithfully to this day.
They do feel like tanks or something, don't they? Reliable, tough, and familiar. Maybe there's an automobile analogy that would work? The pickup truck of canoes?
"The pickup truck of canoes" - good analogy! I have an '88 Chevy 3/4 ton that's a lot like my old Michicraft!
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