I Love Paddling

As Canada anticipates its annual National Canoe Day on Friday, June 26, the London Free Press in Ontario finds that the importance of the canoe in aboriginal, historic, and present-day Canada owes much to the northern nation’s geography. In William Wolfe-Wylie’s story, HERE, Canadian Canoe Museum executive director James Raffan explains that in a country […]

Candance Paul, the chief of the Maliseet First Nation of New Brunswick, Canada, wants to build a museum and heritage center that will feature the “Grandfather Canoe,” built by Maliseet craftsmen 180 years ago. The canoe is thought to be the oldest birchbark canoe in existence.  CBC News published THIS story about this matter today. […]

We’ve written previously, HERE, about St. Cloud, Minnesota’s Les Voyageurs program which sends area high school students on paddling trips deep into the wilds of Ontario, Manitoba, and Nunavut. Recently, we noticed THIS story about how the program — in its 39th year — has gotten inmates at the nearby Minnesota Correctional Facility to paint artistic designs on some of […]

We’ve been intrigued by the reports coming out of south Texas about the Texas Water Safari, billed “The World’s Toughest Canoe Race.” The race, which originated in 1963, runs 260 miles and is contested non-stop. A six-man team headed by Andrew Stephens and which included some “ringers” imported from Belize won the race down the San Marcos […]

The University of California – Berkeley won the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 22nd Annual National Concrete Canoe Championships last weekend in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The Cal Berkeley team, with its 20 foot-long, 230-pound boat dubbed Bear Area, topped Ecole de Technologie Superieure of Canada and Golden State rivals California Polytechnic – San Luis Obispo, which […]

We enjoyed THIS Minneapolis Star Tribune story by outdoor writer Dennis Anderson about a pair of anglers who fished last weekend’s Minnesota muskellunge opener from an aluminum canoe. Heartier than their brethren in larger boats, Brian Gardner and Lori Schwartz admitted that seeking a 40+ inch muskie in a 16-foot boat can be “fearful,” however.

In our favorite event involving college engineering students, concrete construction, and caneoing, teams from across North America are gathering in Tuscaloosa, Alabama this week for the finals of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2009 National Concrete Canoe Competition. Twenty-two college teams from the U.S. and Canada which qualified via regional competition will vie for […]

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