Showing posts with label Another. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Another. Show all posts
Tuesday, 15 September 2015
Another winter day
Today's early morning snowfall will turn to rain and I race through my breakfast and race through my portage to the big lake. It is calm and especially so in the cove where I start, but as I move north the wind builds. It comes to me that it takes so little wind during a winter canoe trip to make the lake somewhat threatening.
I turn the point and head to the big beaver lodge, my favorite of the lodges and a favorite place for me to sit. Its backdrop is the tangled beaver forest of the east marsh and whether any animals are visible, the signs of life are as vivid as that of a cemetery...markers, so many of them. An eagle sits above the lodge when I get there and a flock of buffleheads, which always seem to be where they are, have to move as I paddle in.
When I get into the open water of the bay, east of the burial island, I spot four eagles. The two north nesters are hunting a flock of coots in unison while the south nesters split, one going to the east shore and the other landing in a tree on the burial island not far from where I sit.
Sunday, 5 October 2014
Another Tub Boat and Some Corrections
G.R.G. Worcester's monumental The Junks and Sampans of the Yangtze
is full of some many fascinating boats, this blog could devote itself to that book for years and not run out of material. But since we've been on a jag about tub boats, we'll quote old GRG at length on the Wuhu Tub, drawings of which are shown above from the same source:Floods, droughts, famines, civil wars, and other disasters carrying widespread poverty and distress in their train have brought begging to a fine art in certain parts of the Yangtze Valley.
Normally this is by no means a highly skilled profession, but at Wuhu its followers require to have a knowledge of nautical matters quite out of the ordinary. Here swarms of beggars in tubs cluster round ships made fast to the pontoons and occasionally venture to those at anchor some distance out.
This economical and ingenious custom originated as a practice with two old ladies some 30 or more years ago [i.e., around 1937]. Noting that sampanmen were often fortunate in begging from the passengers of ships making a call at the port, and not having the necessary capital to own or even to hire a sampan, they, nothing daunted, took to the water in the one available craft they did possess, a large wash-tub.
Instant success attended the introduction of this novel form of craft, a success dependent largely on human nature, for the idle passengers on deck are only too ready to be amused by the vociferous and heated competition between the rival crews as they scramble for coins or morsels of food, with all the attendant risks of colliding or capsizing.
As soon as one of the Yangtze passenger-steamers has made fast, several of these elliptical tubs, ranging from 3 to 4 feet across the major axis and sometimes as large as 8 by 6 feet, will appear as from nowhere off the outer side of the ship, varying from the "single seater" variety, paddled with the hands over the side, to one holding a complete family progressing in a style with home-made paddles.
The crew in this case usually consists of a woman who, with the inevitable child lashed to her back, acts as navigator and helmsman, and as many children as the craft will accommodate to paddle. There may be a supercargo in the shape of a baby in a cradle. All the children of an age to do so are trained to hold out their hands in whining supplication.
Does this sound a bit racist? Perhaps it is, and if so I sincerely apologize if it gives offense. It is, nonetheless, interesting from the point of view of our interest in indigenous boats -- in this case, a relatively modern creation (or adaptation) of a boat type outside the western tradition.
* * *
Corrections: Doug Brooks, American builder of Japanese boats, helped correct a few errors of fact or interpretation in my two prior posts on Japanese boats and boatbuilding (this one and this one). Rather than itemize corrections here, I have revised the posts themselves, so if anyone plans to rely on information in either of those posts, please take another look. Of particular interest is that Doug has a new book in the works covering all four of his Japanese apprenticeships.
Wednesday, 30 July 2014
Another Luc Poitras Malecite Style Carved Paddle
Paddle carver Luc Poitras sent in pics of his latest Malecite style paddle complete with carved drip rings, blade spine and decorative etching. This beauty is made from yellow birch and carved entirely with a crooked knife...no spokeshave or sanding.
Given my own experience with a tough yellow birch board that was frustratingly difficult to carve, Luc's all hand carved paddle is amazing.
Wednesday, 9 July 2014
Another Adirondack Guide Paddle
Another Adirondack Guide Paddle for sale by the folks at Summer Antiques. The grips on these paddles are so unusual. A previous post shows off some more of their selection which haven't been sold by the looks of things.
Monday, 13 January 2014
Another Presidential Canoe
Here's an 8 x 10 press photo of Ronald & Nancy Reagan paddling on a pond dated to July 27, 1976.
Seems like Reagan was part of the ranks of paddling Presidents which included Calvin Coolidge's hilariously named canoe "Beaver Dick" and the stately birchbark canoe of FD Roosevelt built by Tomah Joseph
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