LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Live by the sword
I really enjoyed the last is- sue of Canoeroots & Family Camping. You have a terrific maga- zine, one bound for success. I particularly enjoyed Scott MacGregor’s editorial, “Cutting His Teeth,” about the pocketknife. I snipped it out and pinned it to my wall. I’ve always advocated that kids should
have a pocketknife. And this current silli- ness about no knives in school is creating a generation of adults who have no affinity for the natural world. In my eighth-grade environmental sci-
ence classes (I taught middle school for 34 years) I taught a sec- tion called wilderness ethics, which was very well received. Students
learned how to build a one-match fire, prepare a simple one-pot meal and clean up and leave no trace. For the fire-building part I had to issue students a pocketknife (you can’t make tinder and kindling with- out one) because the school wouldn’t al- low kids to bring their own knives to class. I taught students how to open and close a
knife, how to safely use one to make fine shavings for tinder, and how to sharpen a blade. Few students have a clue how to do any of these things. Ironically, education began because the
caveman needed to teach his kids how to spear fish and trap saber tooth tigers. Once the teaching of practical knowl- edge, education has become an exercise in pumping facts and generally useless in- formation into the heads of students. No wonder most students hate school. Cliff Jacobson River Falls, WI
Obstacle to understanding
Your idea of combining Family Camping with a canoe magazine is excellent. Our family intends to learn how to canoe and go on excursions once our children are older. I have a suggestion for your technique section of Canoeroots. In your article on the tandem outside eddy turn, the photos you chose to show the technique don’t actually show the obstacle creating the eddy [V5 I1]. There- fore it is very difficult to under- stand how the canoe is turned in relation to the obstacle. Would it be possible to use overhead photos or drawings to better il- lustrate such techniques? Melanie Reid Wolseley, SK
This is the rock. PHOTO: ©
GARYANDJOANIEMCGUFFIN.COM
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Family Camping welcomes reader com- ments and letters to the editor. Send correspondence to: Editor, Family Camp- ing, P.O. Box 70, Palmer Rapids, ON K0J 2E0 or email: editor@familycampingmag. com. Letters chosen for publication are subject to editing for style and length.
Thanks for your suggestions. The photograph shown here is the first one in the series in the Tandem Outside Eddy Turn article. The obstruction creating the eddy is the rock in the bottom left corner: perhaps we should have labeled it more clearly. The canoe in this photo is in the main current an- gled toward the eddyline created by the rocks. Why don’t we use overhead
shots? Luckily in Canada, bridges over beautiful sections of whitewa- ter are rare. Could we use illustra- tions? We could, but I think colour photos make for a more inspiring magazine, one that I’m glad has inspired you to embark on your own family adventures—don’t wait too long, there are plenty of unforeseen obstacles in the main- stream that could prevent you from eddying out.—SM
4 FAMILY CAMPING
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