Cavorting with a canoe

Guest blog by Nora Lewis Allen

I first heard about the elusive Six-Hour Canoe while reading Richard Wiese’s book “Born to Explore”during a break from writing a particularly mundane paper.

Wooden guide boats nestled in a rack in the Adirondacks of NY.

I was immediately drawn to the idea; it seemed fun and somewhat easy, but for the most part I couldn’t believe that I could actually build a floatable vessel, albeit a small one, in six hours.

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Building a 6 hour canoe.

Launching a 6 hour canoe 12 hours later.

I immediately called an adventurous friend and that night visions of canoes danced in my head.

Wooden boats are floating art.

That week I had a short story due in my narrative writing class. Naturally, I chose to center my story on two friends who decided to build their own canoe. During my critique all my fellow writers could talk about was the canoe; they absolutely loved it.

Allusions, metaphors, poetic language—all were forgotten. All they wanted was more of the canoe. Was it a real thing? Where did I learn about it? They loved how the characters weren’t doing something that was expected, but rather something adventurous and proactive. I believe one adjective used was “kick-ass.” I was surprised by these reactions. The canoe didn’t seem like such a radical idea to me, but in a time when college students use books as a last resort for research and all free-time is spent cruising Facebook, daily life starts to become mundane. My classmates craved the ingenuity and spontaneity of a character who just wanted to build a canoe for the hell of it.

Author

As for my canoe? I am wholly committed to building it this summer with a friend. Will it take us only six hours? I doubt it, but for us it is not necessarily the completion time that matters most. Working on a project for the pure enjoyment of breaking up our usual routine? That does. And how about the actual building? I’ll get back to you on that one…