As I stood on a mid-morning in July at the edge of the Rock Lake Creek, the sky was a bright blue with not a wisp of cloud and not a whisper of a breeze. The water on this mile-long meandering stretch of the South Madawaska River was clear but tea-stained by tannins and the only ripples were from the aluminum skiffs and canoes that had already left the dock. On the banks, forests of cedar, pine, and birch crowded the river and several trees leaned well out over the water, as if pushed by the trees behind them. The banks themselves were masked by a solid wall of scrub brush growing down to the water’s edge.

Photographs by the author

Derek would use the 32-lb strip-planked canoe I built using blue insulating sheet foam for strips rather than cedar. The canoe in front of me is one of three skin-on-frame versions I built of my Wee Bonnie series. The design has its roots in the Wee Lassie canoes built in 1880 for George Washington Sears—aka Nessmuk—by the Rushton Boat Works of Canton, New York. The dock and ramp at the Rock Lake Access Point serves recreational canoeists and residents of lakeside cabins—their outboard skiffs are limited to 20 hp by Algonquin Provincial Park rules.

My son-in-law Derek and I readied our canoes on the trampled grass at the Rock Lake Access Point set midway on the mile-long section of river between Rock and Whitefish lakes. The gear we shuttled from the car was for our four-day adventure in Ontario’s Algonquin Park; the solo canoes were Wee Bonnies that I had designed and built based on Mac McCarthy’s Wee Lassie II. I would paddle the nylon skin-on-frame boat while Derek would use the fiberglass-sheathed blue Styrofoam version. Our outing was an annual retreat for us, but this year was bittersweet. A third paddling companion, Phil, had to cancel at the last minute, and the fourth member of our usual crew, Rob, who had paddled with us for the past seven years, had passed away in February.

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