Ryan Stuart, explore's gear editor
Ryan Stuart's tell all blog spot on his gear addiction and life and times as explore magazine's gear editor
Canoes: then and now
zoomAs I left Quebec City today I saw a mural depicting a voyageur canoe heading off into the 17th Century hinterland. Not long after I saw a modern day canoe on a car roof. I was immediately struck by how much the canoe has changed and how much it remains the same.
The fur traders learned from the local Huron and Iriquois people how to build canoes out of a hull of birch bark patched with tar made from pine sap. Birch grew much bigger back then and from one tree they could peel off all the bark to make the hull. Today it would take several trees. The boats were fairly fast and light, but paddlers were in constant fear of hitting anything in the water because bark isn’t that strong. That didn’t stop the voyageurs from paddling some impressive pieces of whitewater.
Today tripping, whitewater and touring canoes are made from various incarnations of plastics made to have the combined benefits of incredible durability and lightweight. The plastics are carefully molded to perform various tasks – track in a straight line, turn on a dime, carry tons of gear. But besides their composition (and the odd specialized whitewater canoe) canoes are unchanged. Their shape bow to stern is unchanged and their open cockpit is just as approachable as when the first voyageurs set off from Quebec City into New France laden with furs.
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