A Little Red Canoe

Well… a little red-and-white canoe to be more accurate. (Photo here, imagine red instead of blue. Info here.)

So I was biking home from work last Friday, idly thinking thoughts of nothing in particular when I rounded the corner at the Rideau Canoe Club and saw the large Swift Canoe and Kayak banner on their property. It might as well have been a large red bull flag for me, beckoning me onto the club lawn where 8 or 10 people were unloading boats onto the grass.

As you may know loyal reader, I, the recently betrothed narrator of this story, had not yet purchased any token of my affection for my intended. No ring. Nothing. This niggardly disregard for the niceties and proprieties of engagement wasn’t entirely thoughtless, however, as my fiancée doesn’t like rings. A few months ago I was presented with the following demand: “Provide an engagement canoe.”

Actually, the request wasn’t really made in that peremptory tone. But artistic license and all…

So anyway, here’s your man, complete with 10 year old scuffed red helmet, sunglasses, sweaty shirt and totally unshaven bouncing wildly along the sidewalk and over the club lawn like some kind of predator bearing down on his prey. The field of canoes. Now, I know of this sale, my mother having bought a canoe here several years ago. I know that Swift canoes are fantastic craftsman-built boats. I also know that this is their year-end sale where demonstrators and used boats are sold alongside new boats.

I approach the staff. Their uneasy eyes on me as I leap over bush, bracken and gully. (Ok, ok, it’s only 10 metres from the road and it’s grassy and flat. Throw me a frickin bone here people.) I inquire: “How much would I expect to pay for a 17’ prospector design.” They answer: “Symmetrical or asymmetrical design.” I begin to feel that the day is fated for a canoe purchase.

They are still setting up. The sale does not begin until Saturday morning. However, they suggest I look at a pair of green Chestnut canoes. Alert seafaring readers may know that Chestnut is the brand of canoes that paddling legend Bill Mason (see also here) favoured above all others. Bill’s preference was for the beautiful old fashion of a canvas-covered wooden boat (now extinct). Swift is now producing the Chestnut design again albeit with modern materials instead.

The Chestnut was only 16 feet long though. And that’s a touch narrow in the beam for a canoe tripping boat. And Jen and I are canoe trippers. So, I cast about for another option.

And there it was. A 16’6” Kipewa design. Looking like new, it was sitting resplendant between beaten-up used old rental boats, it was a vision in white and red. Red in the freeboard (the part of the hull above the water) and white below. I was drawn to it immediately, almost as if in recognition. Although it had aluminum gunwales, It had cherry wood fittings, with a sliding front seat for trimming the boat, a kneeling thwart for solo paddling, and a contoured yoke for portages.

I said to one of the salespeople: “I am really interested in that red and white Kipewa”. All the sales staff immediately became very excited. “That’s the best boat here” cried one. “We made a mistake on the pricing… it’s a steal” cried another. I didn’t see these exclamations as ungenuine, more as the staff sharing in the excitement of the sale of this heavenly craft. It was in fact reasonably priced. And it was the best boat there… I looked.

The sales people told me that a lot of folks would be disappointed if I bought the boat Friday night (by which I understood that they would, in fact, sell me this boat before the sale started). I wish I’d told them that it was to be an engagement canoe, but I didn’t think of it. In any case, the boat had been used only as a demonstrator at the Rideau Canoe Club for the summer. That meant that it was being sold at a discount to account for the few small scrapes, scuffs and scratches on it. There aren’t enough scratches to be disfiguring, just enough subtle ones to make the boat look inviting, functional and real. Anyway, it turns out that several people who tried the boat over the summer had told the staff that they planned to show up for the sale on September 11th and buy the exact demonstrator they had tested. I was trumping their desires by being around on the 10th!

Problem… no wallet. In my rush to leave in the morning I had not brought my wallet with me. So here I am, with the canoe purchase opportunity of a lifetime, and no means to complete the sale. I said, “will you still be here in an hour?” they said “hurry back”. So I jumped on my bike, and tore off down the Rideau Canal Eastern Pathway to get home. I bet it was a record time, as I kept thinking about someone else arriving and buying the canoe in the meantime.

A few stressful moments at home when Jen wasn’t there, but I found her walking home from the grocery store, and bundled her into the car and back we went. I told her that we were on a secret mission, and this seemed to be keeping her on edge too; she kept asking if it was a good mission, and I reassured her, but she had no idea where we were going until we arrived at the place and she saw the array of boats. She pronounced that although she knew little about selecting boats, this one was acceptable if I thought it was good. By this point in the story you should be getting the idea that I thought it was great.

I paid for the boat. Explained to Jen that it was a boat for her. She was excited. I was excited. It was exciting. We went home. Sans boat, because I hadn’t brought all the tie downs and everything.

The next day when we went to pick up the boat we were told that indeed several people had come to the sale early specifically to buy that boat. They were very disappointed to learn that it had been sold the night before. Again I wish that I had told the staff that it was an engagement boat, but didn’t think of it at the time.

In the end, we put our new boat in the water Sunday evening at the cottage. We paddled it for an hour or so, and it was a great paddle. As dusk fell we explored a lily-pad marshy spot, flushed a few beaver out of hiding and generally enjoyed the super-smooth paddle in our fantastic new boat.

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