muddy moats, the water turbid with the famous brick-coloured clay of PEI. The novelty of merely paddling quietly
recreational
being quickly exhausted, we turned rapidly to a life of crime. At first we confined our assaults on the other canoeists to mere broadsides of water fired with slaps of the paddle. But, emboldened by the lack of consequence as the adolescent park attendants piped ineffectual threats from shore, we quickly graduated to full-on boardings of innocent mariners. We either flung our hapless victims over-
board, or capsized the stricken craft, throwing passengers and crew into Dave Jones’ locker. The loss of life was appalling—or at least it would have been, were it not for the fact that the bounding main was in no place more than two feet deep. Still, people got their sneakers quite soggy as they waded ashore. And the seas ran red with mud. It was not long until our dread reputation had cleared the waters of all shipping. We
were reduced to assaulting each other. Being siblings, we set to this task with a will, taking it in turn to bring our craft up to ramming speed, while the other sat cooperatively motionless in their own boat, waiting to be T- boned. Again and again the boats collided with a thunderous crash that echoed through the valley, and was most likely heard even within the hallowed confines of the flying saucer.
The seas ran red with mud.
Though the authorities, such as they were,
had been loathe to wade after us, at one point the more ambitious among them gave chase in another vessel, and a sort of Keystone Canoeists pursuit ensued. If memory serves, it was not capture that forced us to end our freebooting ways that day, but sheer exhaustion from our villainous endeavors. We
were thus among the few pirates ever to retire peacefully, rather than coming to a bad end. This past summer my sister visited me in
Vancouver, where I now live, from Europe, where she now lives. For the first time, I met my niece, Danica, a blond imp who is the spitting image of her mother. We took her paddling, sitting on her mother's lap in the bow. She fussed at first, paying about as much heed to her mother as we had to our parents. But as we started a rollercoaster ride, cresting each wave to crash down upon its far side, she began to shriek with delight, bellowing commands for the galley slaves to paddle faster. My sister and I smiled, secure in the knowledge that across three decades and three thousand miles, the torch was being passed to the next generation of paddling pirates.
Philip Torrens is a writer with a life-long passion for paddle craft in all their forms. His most recent adventures include a solo circuit of the famous Bowron Lakes Route.
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