The Happy Camper: Double Blading the Devil’s Chariot
I thought it was an innocent enough thing to do. I spent the long weekend in August sitting on a fishing kayak and propelling it across the lake with a double blade paddle. I thought it was a progressive move on my part. Others disagreed and characterized me as the devil himself riding on top of his watery chariot through pristine wilderness. They were aghast. I was generally pissed off with their close mindedness.
I’m a traditional single blade canoeist at heart. I always will be. But when Ben Kelly, a YouTube fishing celeb, asked me to join him for a couple of days of tossing bass baits from an open-concept boat called a “fishing kayak,” I agreed wholeheartedly. The reasoning was simple. I hadn’t done it before, and he said I’d catch more fish. Easy peasy.
The eve before our departure to a nearby spot in North Frontenac labelled Crotch Lake, I posted a quick video of me pulling into the driveway with the fishing kayak I rented from the local outfitter Frontenac Outfitters lashed to the top of my vehicle. When my partner, Kristine, came out to see what I was up to, I pulled an elongated double blade paddle out of the back seat and loudly exclaimed to her and the entire neighbourhood that I had brought home the devil.
Kristine got a good laugh at it, so did the majority of my social media friends after I posted the video. There was some light-hearted bantering, but that’s a given. After all, I had been on the media many times stating that “real” canoeists don’t use double-blade paddles. It was pay-back time for sure, and well deserved. But there were also some born-again purists who sent me private (and public) distasteful notes about how wrong it was for me to go romping around the wilderness in Lucifer’s chariot and how down-right immoral it is to be using a double-blade to help me along. Their main issue—I was misrepresenting the canoe community and should be ashamed of myself.
I’m sure there are other outdoor groups that are self-righteous about how we get around out there. There’s probably a cluster of backpackers who shun mountain bikers or a community of campers who mock RV owners. There’s also the debate over whether an ATV driver can get the same wilderness kick that a rock climber does. And there’s always new ways to transport yourself, or people who do a total switch-over from one outlet to another due to a change in lifestyle or interests.
What’s more important than what you use to get around while camping is that you actually go camping. We’re all basically made of the same moral fibre with a slight difference in character to make things interesting. So, whether you choose to canoe or kayak open water, or bike or hike a trail, shouldn’t really matter as much as simply getting out there to do it.
Basically, the top offence has to be not appreciating being out there, not stopping to smell the roses, not taking in the magic that surrounds you. You shouldn’t spend more time complaining about how others propel themselves out there than you do being thankful for reconnecting with wilderness.
And by the way, I caught tonnes of monster bass and slowly got used to sitting on a flat surfaced boat and getting my buttocks wet all day. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Check out the video of my time on Lucifer’s chariot on my KCHappyCamper YouTube channel
And check out Ben Kelly’s version on his YouTube channel Paddleheads. It’s always good to get a different perspective on things.
