Eons ago we slithered, dripping, from the primordial slime; abandoning our aquatic origins to start a new life on land. Yet the pull to return to the seas that spawned us stays strong.
Communing with our watery nature has positive psychological consequences, or so says E.O. Wilson, who calls this “BIOPHILIA”, the “urge to affiliate with other forms of life”.
How best to explore our marshes, bayous, rivers and lakes? The OLD TOWN CAMPER 16 canoe!
BILL MASON, author of many good books on canoeing claims “There is nothing that is so aesthetically pleasing and yet so functional and versatile as the canoe”.
Our 16’ boat can carry 1200 lbs. of people, dog and gear. It’s Royalex construction make it light enough to load easily atop the Crv with no fancy racks or mounts required, just simple YAKIMA canoe blocks and some rope.
With the addition of two very light-weight BENDING BRANCHES paddles, all we need to do for some fun and adventure is just add water.
Our first expedition will most likely be to CADDO LAKE, an extraordinary, ancient flooded forest of Bald Cypress trees, very near to our home. This area, depending on rainfall, is a sprawling maze of fascinating backwater, covering roughly 26,000 acres. The huge old trees are thickly curtained with diaphanous sheets of Spanish Moss. The bourbon-colored water teems with fish, turtles and snakes. The tree branches are decorated with many species of birds. There is a good STATE PARK.
During the cooler winter months, this place is a Paddler’s Paradise.
Floating silently beneath overhanging tree branches in dappled shade has a profoundly peaceful, womb-like quality that can’t be compared to any other activity I can think of. Come, let’s all go paddling and become children of nature.
“What sets a canoeing expedition apart is that it purifies you more rapidly and inescapably than any other travel. Travel a thousand miles by train and you are a brute; pedal five hundred on a bicycle and you remain basically a bourgeois; paddle a hundred in a canoe and you are already a child of nature.” -- Pierre Elliott Trudeau
