When is canoeing not canoeing?
The iconic Swiss army knife - jack of all trades but adequate for many?
One measure of an effective technology may be the number of solutions a single tool affords. Chef's knives, paring knives, bread knives, boning knives, and carving knives all do certain tasks to a high level but a paring knife will struggle to carve wood. What place do adaptable, multitools such as the well known Swiss Army knife occupy? Such tools are unlikely to solve problems with the same ease or efficiency, perhaps their power lies in adaptability, in the capacity to solve many problems adequately.
Our culture lauds specialists, the expertise that arises from deep competence in a narrow field are highly valued. The pejorative term ‘bodger’ is often used to describe someone who produces low quality work however this belies a deeper craft in working creatively with simple tools to solve problems to an adequate level. A good example of the beauty and power of such adaptability, may lie in the '‘problem solving’ demonstrated by the Apollo 13 crew and support team when in 1970 they discovered a critical issue with the spacecraft’s system prompting a life saving display of the art of bodging using only the equipment they had with them to bring craft and crew safely home.
Reclaiming a more positive conceptualisation of the term perhaps a skilled canoeist is then a ‘bodger’; a crafter equipped to shape journeys through widely varied environments seeking and finding the adequate solutions using their single, adaptable tool. For me in an age of single use deskilling specialism there is empowerment in this low tech, self reliant adaptability.
Specialist technologies tend to thrive in their niche performance context but often have a limited capacity to adapt, forcing the need for a new piece of technology. In this context the canoe may be understood as the swiss army knife of journey technologies, a generalist that can be adapted to move from one job to the next solving it adequately. In the paddlesport realm there are specialist craft that solve each of their particular ‘problems’: the high volume white water kayak or the smooth leopard-seal lines of the sea kayak, but the canoe as understood in the British context sits amidst; jack-of-all and master-of-none. Assuming the journey only involves one kind of environment and only asked for one source of propulsion - the paddle.
When you first think of canoeing where is the boat and how is it being propelled?
The secret sauce…
For many the answer will be “on the water and propelled by a paddle of course!” Yet part of the charm and perhaps the powerful secret sauce of the canoe lies in the many ways it may be propelled.
Here are a few;
Leg power - portgaging over land, carried on your back, dragged on grass or rumbling on wheels (trolleying). In 2016 I and a friend portaged our canoes up rough tracks over 7.8km over the 800m Lake District fell ‘Coniston Old Man’.
Pushing with a pole - ‘canoe poling’ involves ‘standing tall and holding a big stick’ (Rock, 2005). Where the canoe is propelled by pushing a long stick against the lake or river bed with the potential to drive powerfully against fast flowing rivers enabling upstream travel. The potential to travel upstream makes this is great way to explore rivers with a low flow, just put on and pole upstream as far as you can then bump back down.
Pulling with a rope from onshore - ‘tracking’ is a technique for enabling the canoe to travel upstream against very powerful water flows or winds being flown like a kite while dragged from ashore. Similarly ‘lining’ allows the boat to flow downstream running rapids without the weight and risk of a canoeist in the boat.
Wind power - whether using the breeze to drift, standing and holding a bag in the air or carving upwind with a modern bermudan rigged sail.
Left to right below:
A canoe on a portage trolley. Inspirational canoe poling champion Harry Rock in action. Tracking canoes up a fast flowing river. A lightweight and largely downwind canoe sail.
The trick then is being skilled enough ‘bodgers’ to adapt the canoe to keep it moving in the most efficient way possible in the given conditions.
Ronan is also a swiss army knife…
He is adapted to sail upwind adequately, if not as well as a dinghy, he can be paddled comfortably if not as speedily as a sea kayak, he can handle rough water reasonably well and is just light enough to be dragged along beaches and roads using his wheels. He may not have a cosy cabin but in the right conditions it is also possible to brew a cup of tea, lie down for a nap and perform some gymnastic ablutions!
So when is canoeing not canoeing? I guess you know what I think. It doesn’t matter how the canoe is propelled, as long as you’re in or with a canoe you are canoeing. More philosophically perhaps any time you value dynamic, place responsive solutions or doing more with less you are thinking like a canoeist and nudging against the noble art of bodging.
Words by Rich Ensoll
Images various public domain