“Please Put Me Back in the Water”
18 Nov
If you’ve read Holling C. Holling’s classic children’s book Paddle to the Sea or watched Bill Mason’s film adaptation of the story, you’ll likely remember these words: “Please put me back in the water.”
They were etched in the bottom of the wooden canoe that a Lake Nipigon youngster carved in hopes of the boat reaching salt water. As the little canoe and its little carved paddler meandered its way downstream, those encountering it always abided by the inscription.
According to Michigan’s White Lake Beacon, HERE, people are still finding the inscription carved into the hulls of little, hopeful boats. This fall, Doddin Applegate found a miniature vessel washed up on the shores of White Lake in Western Michigan. It carried the same inscription: “Please Put Me Back in the Water. I am Paddle-to-the-Sea.”
Applegate learned the boat had been launched on the St. Mary’s River — where water from Lake Superior flows into Lakes Huron — on July 12, 2007. The boat, which somehow drifted east into Lake Michigan waters, had been found earlier in its journey by Coast Guard officials. For Applegate to find the little canoe on White Lake — and inland lake just upstream from Lake Michigan — it somehow had to make its way up the White Lake Channel connecting the two lakes.
For now, the newly repainted boat assumes a prominent place in the Applegate home, but will once again paddle to the sea come spring.
