Watertribe,
This coming May I’m going to launch a canoe near the headwaters of the Missouri and paddle to the Gulf. This much is decided.
What is undecided is the craft I will call home for more than half a year. When I first started dreaming of this trip I fathomed these 3800 miles in my stitch and glue kayak, but a complication has presented itself: I will now travel for up to two months with a partner who is incapable of paddling her own craft given her health and age. My mother is recovering from cancer and she needs this trip as much as I do. As a teacher she has up to two months to spare in the summer and she’s anxious to get back on the water and join me for a leg of this trip. I don't think I need to explain the redemptive powers of paddling here or the inherent value in difficulty. My brother will also join me for a week, as will a smattering of other family and friends. For the first time in my life, I need a canoe. And I don’t know where to start.
I need a canoe that is efficient and can handle 1 person and gear easily because this is how I will spend the majority of my days, but I need a canoe that can accommodate a second person and their gear as needed. There will be no real white water on this trip, although some of the dams have created massive lakes that will allow for potentially significant weather, and while I have no illusions of paddling solo into 25knot headwinds, I don’t want to be shore-bound for days because my boat gets blown around like a plastic bag in a stiff breeze. I need a comfortable well-tracking gear hauler with just enough room to spare for changing partners, and moderate lake weather. I have always prized efficiency in a hull over stability and this trip is no different. I’m a proficient canoeist, but I’ve never invested in a canoe of my own and have never spent the hours online drooling and dreaming like I have over Nordkapps kayaks. In comparison canoes have seemed like simple crafts relative to the sea kayak. That is, until I started researching what this trip requires of a canoe.
A final consideration is that I will choose to be unemployed for most of 2016. And because I have spent the last 4 years not as a stock broker but as a park ranger, my finances are humble. I can’t drop 3k on a new Kevlar boat.
So I write in the hopes of tapping into the great wellspring of boating knowledge that is this community. What, Watertribe, is the canoe to handle a trip of this magnitude?
I leave California in March and will drive to Tennessee, then to Wisconsin, and eventually to Montana. I’m going to cover a heck of a lot of ground in this country and I’ve never been afraid of detours. If you know of a suitable boat that’s for sale, please don’t hesitate in letting me know.
Sincerely,
Obruni
Yosemite, CA