The Reluctant Guru


FOR OMER STRINGER, CANOEING WAS A WAY OF LIFE, NOT A RELIGION BY JAMES RAFFAN


C


ompared to whitewater paddlers who coin splashy new terms every other day, the lexicon of flatwater


paddlers is pretty bland. Even younger terms like the “sculling draw” have been around since Noah was in diapers. But stop the presses! From the flatwater canoeing world comes “Omering,” derived from Canada’s lesser-known paddling guru, Omer Stringer. Let us begin with what Omering is not.


It is not the act of wearing a Beaver Canoe sweatshirt which, wearers of Roots gar- ments will know, sported a “Made by Omer Stringer” credit under the silk-screened icon of a pudgy little beaver. Omering is all about taking a run-of-the-mill tandem boat—nothing fancy required—and kneel- ing to one side near the centre thwart to heel it over and shorten the waterline. Omering is executing precise, efficient turns, side-slips, landings and pirouettes on flatwater. Omer Stringer was born in 1912 just


east of Algonquin Park and spent his formative summers with his parents and more than 16 brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews in the Stringer family cabin at the north end of Canoe Lake. Canoe guides like Omer’s dad, John, took hunters and fishers for extended stays at interior camp- sites. Once the guests were in situ, guides would return alone for extra supplies, usually paddling solo in the stern seat and weighing down the bow with rocks stored at the end of portages for that purpose. Omer started guiding in his teens. A slight man of only 5’5” with an inventive mind, Omer left the rocks on the ground and instead moved to the middle of the canoe to paddle with the canoe tilted on its side to get himself closer to the water. Was this a technique invented by Omer,


the man who came to be called the father of modern canoeing? Probably not. As a teen Omer had spent time at Camp Ahmek on Algonquin’s Canoe Lake where he met people like Ronald H. Perry who had been


experimenting with canoe techniques long before Omer came on the scene. Omer, though, is in firm possession of


his own legacy. In the 1930s, he teamed up with Lou Handler to found Camp Tamak- wa on South Tea Lake in Algonquin where he taught legions of teens, mostly from Detroit, to love canoeing. A stint of war service in India and the


Far East and time in Detroit spent devel- oping white noise pain-abatement devices for dentists, removed him from the park for a while, but by the 1960s he moved closer to home to Mississauga where he taught electronics until the 1980s. Canoe-


a paddler that two young entrepreneurs from Camp Tamakwa chose to immor- talize. Instead, they created the Beaver Canoe Company and installed Omer as chief builder. If several dozen canoes made versus several million sweatshirts sold in Omer’s name are an indication of what was really going on at Beaver Canoe, then the project was always more about the brand than the boats. When Omer Stringer died in 1988,


there was no fuss, no service. Tat’s the way, said his only son David, he wanted it. “Omer never aspired to be a poet of the canoe. In fact, he laughed at people who


Omer’s teaching schtick included choreographed flying leaps into his canoe as it blew away from the dock.


ing was never far from his mind. Sponsored by the Ontario Safety


League, Omer would take his love of flat- water paddling and a message about safe canoeing to parks and camps. A compact man with the strength and balance of a gymnast, his teaching schtick included choreographed flying leaps into his canoe as it blew away from the dock and—the perennial crowd-pleaser—headstands on the bow seat. Using his paddle like a stir stick in a coffee cup he could move the canoe any which way, often one-handed, to the adulation of admiring crowds. In 1966 he helped make a film called


Paddle and Portage which explained his pragmatic approach to canoeing and led to the publishing of a small how-to book of his own that was distributed at his clinics and presentations. It reveals that, despite his eager showmanship in front of crowds, the canoe for Omer was a utilitarian ve- hicle for simply moving across water. Ironically, when Omer retired from


teaching in 1983 it was not his prowess as


couldn’t sell a paddle without first telling two or three Indian legends or those who couldn’t talk about canoeing without first praying to one of the canoe gods. He found them funny.” Poet or not, some kind things were said in his memory at a posthumous award- ing of the Friends of Algonquin Director’s Award in the fall of that year. His favourite red Chestnut “Chum” was put up in the cafeteria of the park’s new Visitor’s Centre. Te family recently republished his how-to book for sale in Algonquin. But for all of the people he taught, for all


of the people he inspired and entertained in his canoe, nearly two decades after his death, it may be his friends like American canoeist Caleb Davis who have bestowed the most enduring honour on this reluc- tant guru by coining the term Omering, for what we do when we want to feel how easily a canoe moves across the water.


JAMES RAFFAN admits to owning at least one pink Beaver Canoe sweatshirt, but insists it is a painting smock. His latest book is called Emperor of the North.


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