Idleness Water And A Canoe

This book describes the cultural significance of two centuries of recreational paddling in Canada, illustrating through contemporary interviews and published sources what the experience of canoeing has meant to the sport's participants.

Inheriting a Canoe Paddle emphasizes the importance of self-consciously evaluating the meaning we give to canoes as objects and to canoeing as an activity.

A rich history of Canadian wilderness travel, "an utterly compelling collection," said The Globe and Mail, and "a gem -- it absolutely sparkles," according to Canadian Geographic. Declared by the Canadian Historical Association to be the best book published of its year on the regional history of Canada's North. With essays by William C. James, C.E.S. Franks, George Luste, Margaret Hobbs, John Jennings, Shelagh Grant, Gwyneth Hoyle, Bruce W. Hodgins, Jamie Bendickson, Craig Macdonald, Jean Murray Cole, John Marsh and John Wadland.

Canoe and Canvas offers a detailed portrait of the summer encampments of the American Canoe Association between 1880 and 1910. The encampments were annual events that attracted canoeing enthusiasts from both sides of the Canada-US border to socialize, race canoes, and sleep under canvas. While the encampments were located away from cities, they were still subjected to urban logic and ways of living. The encampments, thus, offer a unique site for exploring cultures of sport and leisure in late Victorian society, but also for considering the intersections between recreation and the politics of everyday life. A social history of sport, Canoe and Canvas is particularly concerned with how gender, class, and race shaped the social, cultural, and physical landscapes of the ACA encampments. Although there was an ever-expanding arena of opportunity for leisure and sport in the late nineteenth century, as the example of the ACA makes clear, not all were granted equal access. Most of the members of the American Canoe Association and the majority of the campers at the annual encampments were white, middle-class men, though white women were extended partial membership in 1882, and in 1883, they were permitted to camp on site. Canoe and Canvas also reveals how Black, Indigenous, and working-class people, while obscured in the historical record, were indispensable to the smooth functioning of these events through their labour.

More than an ancient means of transportation and trade, the canoe has come to be a symbol of Canada itself. In Canoe Nation, Bruce Erickson argues that the canoe’s sentimental power has come about through a set of narratives that attempt to legitimize a particular vision of Canada that overvalues the nation’s connection to nature. From Alexander Mackenzie to Grey Owl to Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the canoe authenticates Canada’s reputation as a tolerant, environmentalist nation, even when there is abundant evidence to the contrary. Ultimately, the stories we tell about the canoe need to be understood as moments in the ever-contested field of cultural politics.

One of our favourite chroniclers of all things Canadian presents a rollicking, personal, photo-filled history of the relationship between a country and its canoes. From the earliest explorers on the Columbia River in BC or the Mattawa in Ontario to a doomed expedition of voyageurs up the Nile to rescue Khartoum; from the author's family roots deep in the Algonquin wilderness to modern families who have canoed across the country (kids and dogs included): Canoe Country is Roy MacGregor's celebration of the essential and enduring love affair Canadians have with our first and still favourite means of getting around. Famous paddlers have been so enchanted with the canoe that one swore God made Canada as the perfect country in which to paddle it. Drawing on MacGregor's own decades spent whenever possible with a paddle in his hand, this is a story of high adventure on white water and the sweetest peace in nature's quietest corners, from the author best able (and most eager) to tell it.

"The canoe has played a particularly important role in British Columbia. This seemingly simple watercraft allowed coastal First Nations to hunt on the open ocean and early explorers to travel the province's many waterways. Always at the crossroads of canoe culture, BC today is home to innovative artists and designers who have rediscovered ancient canoe-building techniques, as well as community leaders who see the canoe's potential to bring people together in exciting, inspiring ways. The book chronicles the evolution of the canoe and its impact on the various people who used it to explore, hunt, trade, fight, race, create, and even heal. Dozens of stories of colourful, passionate people who have contributed to the province's canoe culture. Canoe Crossings will appeal to anyone who has ever sought adventure, found solace, or seen beauty in a canoe or wondered about the origins of its design"--Provided by publisher.

Carol and Bruce Hodgins began leading canoe trips in 1957 for Camp Wanapitei on Lake Temagami in Northern Ontario, initially to the great rivers of that region and on into Quebec. Their first venture north of 60 found them on the South Nahanni, soon to be followed by the Coppermine River, and by the 1990s their annual tripping took them to the Soper River on Baffin Island. included with their richly descriptive accounts of wilderness travel with groups of people, are kayak adventures in Baja California, Mexico, and the Queen Charlottes, paddling in and near the Everglades and explorations on Heritage rivers in the Maritimes and along the coast of Newfoundland. Few have personally experienced the breadth of wilderness travel in Canada as have the Hodgins husband-and-wife team. Their fifty years as "paddling partners," a legendary achievement, is a story of shared joys, challenges, triumphs and mishaps, delightfully told and augmented by excerpts from daily logs, historical insights and the tidbits of experience gleaned over the years.