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Canoeing’s Greatest misadventures


Unattainable ungulates


Albert Bigelow Paine and his trusty sidekick Eddie spent much of 1908 paddling, bushwhacking and mucking their way through the swamps of Nova Scotia on a mission of grave scientific impor- tance. Their objective: to collect two moose to stick in the British Museum of Natural History.


Along the way they con- tended with the gastroin- testinal aftermath of eating a poorly-cooked owl, a severe bout of poison ivy and simmering tension over disparate reading material (Paine brought Alice in Wonderland and Eddie packed along a French sex novel). They failed to apprehend a moose, and returned home to New


York the moment they began to run low on their medicinal remedy for poison ivy: bourbon, as prescribed by the good doctor Jim Beam.


Post-trip blues


David Halsey’s 1977 wilderness trek across Canada went from bad, to worse, to worst. His crew quit all of four days into the trip, tak- ing most of the gear and leaving Halsey ill equipped and alone in the mountains of British Columbia. He continued on, however, and was joined by a wandering photographer and Ki, a scruffy, half- wild dog who ventured into camp one evening begging for food and never left. The threesome managed to survive canoe spills, hunger, hypothermia, major storms and severe frostbite before reaching their destination on the St. Lawrence River three years later.


The hardships didn’t end there for Halsey, who had difficulty


re-entering civilization. Already suffering from bipolar disorder, his problems worsened when Ki was struck by a car and continued when the publisher of his book backed out of publishing it. Soon after, the intrepid explorer took an overdose of medication and drove off a bridge.


On a brighter note, Halsey’s book Magnetic North, was finished by an underling of the publisher, and remains a classic of canoeing literature—and a testament to the therapeutic value of travelling by canoe.


Ship of fools?


In 1980, Don Starkell set out on a 23-month, 20,000-kilometre canoe trip from Winnipeg to the Amazon with his two sons Dana and Jeff. The tribulations of the first season (capsizes and the loss of provisions, rather mild stuff by Starkell standards) were enough for Jeff to call it quits. Don and Dana headed out again the next spring, however, and very nearly found themselves executed by a pair of inebriated gunmen. Mistaken for supporters of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, the paddlers


were dragged from their campsite to be exe- cuted. Dana made a run for it and was able to reach a


nearby home. With witnesses now involved, Don was let go. Not easily dissuaded by such things, the pair teamed up for a third sea- son, traversing South America via the Orinoco, Rio Negro and Amazon rivers. Admirers label it an amazing account of courage and commit- ment. Detractors consider it a crazy trip fuelled by naivety and luck, pointing to Don’s 1995 attempt to kayak from Churchill, Manitoba to Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T. Arescue team found him 50 kilo- metres from his destination, half-starved and frostbitten to the point that he had to have numerous fingers and toes amputated. He later admitted, "I've got something screwy going on in my life…but I just go with the flow."


And in this corner, wearing the woolen trunks…


Finding you dislike your canoeing partner isn’t exactly unheard of, but when the trip starts in New York City and ends two years later in Nome, Alaska, interpersonal strife looms large. Animosity developed between Jeff Pope and Shell Taylor just a few days into their epic voyage of 1936-37. Taylor was of the opinion that his partner was lazy, ate too much bannock and was more or less a “square-headed son of a bitch.”


Somehow they managed to hold off punching one another— until the second last day. When Taylor insisted they push on to


18 www.canoeroots.ca


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