In that I’m still relatively immobile due to OFK (“Old-Fart Knee”)—and therefore lacking any fascinating and/or dangerous wilderness adventures to report (other than to the grocery store, dangerous to my wallet as previously described)—I thought I’d quickly share this video clip of a “friend of mine” who routinely hangs out with me in Grand Portage National Monument canoe warehouse where I served as a volunteer interpreter.
The Montreal Canoe, aka, the “Canot du Maître.”
No screws, no nails. No conventional glue. No fillers. All natural ingredients: paper white birch, white cedar and black spruce. Ancient technology, but still slices through the water with power, grace and nimbleness…even in 2023.
Back in the fur trade days, gigantic canoes like this would’ve made the crossing from Montreal (ergo, the name) to Grand Portage—1,500 miles of treacherous Canadian wilderness—delivering European trade goods to the post. The engines? French-Canadian farm boys known as “Voyageurs.” Usually 10-15 of them, depending on the scale of the cargo load. They paddled 12-13 hours a day, seven days a week, made repairs at night, slept four hours if they were lucky (under the canoes, their exposed skin slathered in 18th century mosquito repellent, i.e., bear grease). The trip took 6-8 weeks. After a few days of blowing off steam at the Grand Portage post (which typically involved rum-fueled fist fights), the Voyageurs would paddle the canoes back to Montreal, but this time filled with furs which would eventually be transferred to ships bound for Europe.
I dunno. Just seems like a lot of trouble to go to to make some snooty viscount look spiffy at the opera in his beaver top hat.
***
I hope all of you are cooler now and pray your ACs are humming along satisfactorily under the strain. I won’t dare mention the predicted high temp for today in my neck of the Northwoods. But I will mention the fact that, just this past week, a few locals were overhead complaining about the “heat.”
It was a scorching 76 degrees at that time.
Geez. They don’t know hot like we do, right-o?
Peace & Love,
Mark
38-Foot Tour of the Montreal Canoe: Container Ship of the 18th Century Fur Trade