January 12, 2006 - Adventures in canoeingThe News - Review • January 12, 2006
dv ntures
in cano in
Ennui,,
Left: This little deer mouse had
taken up residence in one of our
canoes. When we turned the
canoe over, we found the mouse
nest and one scared little deer
mouse.
News - Review photo by Barbara Stouten
IT ALL STARTED WHEN my son came
ver to borrow one of our canoes.
en we brought out the light Kevlar
oe from where it was stored up-
side down alongside the garage, in it
was a mouse's nest and one terrified
deer mouse that ran up to the bow. It
couldn't climb the slippery sides, so it
froze there as we giants stood around
peering at it. Here was the perfect
chance for Barbara to get a picture of
that big -eyed,
long - whiskered
Focus little deer mouse.
You see the re-
O N sults here.
NATURE There were a
few things that
by Paul had to be fixed
Stoutenburgh before the ca-
noe would be
ready to go. As I
worked over her, my mind wandered
back to the canoes we've had over the
years and the trips we enjoyed with
them. Let's start at the beginning, with
our first canoe. It must have been in the
early '50s. I was working at that time
for a farm- implement company out of
Riverhead. It was when the benefits
of irrigation were first being realized.
Being a salesman, it was my job to sell
the irrigation pipes, sprinklers, pumps
and power supplies. It was a great job,
for it took me all over the island visiting
farmers from Huntington to Orient'.
One of my stops was along Sound
Avenue in Riverhead at Jack's place,
where I happened to catch him out in
the barn. We talked about irrigation
and-how crops could almost double
one's yield in certain years by using ir-
rigation. Then I spotted this red canoe
hanging in the barn. The chickens were
getting more use out of it to lay their
eggs in than Jack was. I wondered if he
would sell it? "Yes." We dickered over
the price and so my first canoe turned
out to be a square -ended Grumman
canoe. The red color was awful, so
I took it back to the shop where I
worked, to show it to Bill Jackowski,
the shop foreman. He was one of the
great people I'd get to know from
working there. When he found out I
didn't much like the red color he said,
"No problem. How would you like
John Deere Breen ?"
Our family used that canoe on trips
through most of the Maritime Prov-
inces and Fundy Provincial Park in
Canada, in Acadia National Park in
Maine and other parks along the way.
One memorable trip I'm sure all will
remember, started when we packed a
lunch along with all the fishing gear,
ready for a day's outing. We were all
ready to take ofi Barbara and the
three kids were in the canoe waiting
for me to push off, which I did; the onl
problem was there was a submerged
log in front of the canoe, which threw
them all to one side and the canoe
flipped over with everything scattered
about. What a mess!
Oh, for a camera just then, but it
was floating in its waterproof bag,
along with other things. We laughed a
lot, went back to the camp, got on dry
clothes and headed back, still deter- .
mined to go fishing. By the way, when
we got back to where we had flipped
the canoe over and the muddy water
had cleared, we could see the carrot
sticks from our basket lunch standine
During a camping trip around the
Great Lakes, my son thought we
should try fishing at night, so we took
the canoe and were ofE We didn't catch
any fish but disaster struck when we
got back to the car and I reached for
my wallet: It was gone. Somewhere out
in that wilderness lake was my wal-
let. Gone were my license, cash, credit
cards — the works. All somewhere out
in the lake. We returned the next day
but never did find any sign of it.
One year we carried the old Grum-
man canoe west, where we spent part
of the summer in Yellowstone National
Park. It was a great place to have a
canoe and explore. We portaged from
one lake to another; the three kids
were a great help carrying the canoe
and equipment. The highlight was
when our kids, who all had snorkels
and flippers, found a submerged tree
and hanging on it was the greatest as-
sortment of fishing lures you ever saw.
As cold as the water was, they contin-
ued to go back and forth, each time
bringing in a new shiny lure. There
must have been at least 50 of them.
Evidently everyone fished this spot
and everyone snagged the tree and lost
their lure.
When the kids were off on their own,
we needed a much lighter canoe to
handle and be able to put on top of the
popup camper on top of the pickup,
so we of the Kevlar canoe that I'm
wor ing on this week in the shop. We
traveled 14,000 miles crisscrossing th-
great country of ours, visiting interest-
ing places and family members who
we hadn't seen m years. We visited th
S and the Pacific coastline
the great Northwest up to the
ympic Peninsula, but we were never
so impressed as we were when we
camped amongst the redwoods.
(More on our canoes and trips next
week.)