According to the imprint surrounding the beaver logo she was made by the Bellechagge Company in St. Raphael, Quebec around twenty five years ago. I know the approximate age as I bought the canoe from a great aunt who sold it to me along with the paddles after my great uncle passed away. He had bought the whole package new around 1985 and they spent many a lazy summer day up on some quiet lake up in the Rocky Mountains fishing for trout and taking in the beauty.

He succumbed to cancer in 2005 and then the canoe and paddles became mine.

I began to horrify my great aunt with the odd story of how I had taken the previously pacified and gentle Coleman out on to wild Alberta rivers where I proceeded to smash into trees and rocks. One time I had even bent it in half and almost lost my son and a cousin in the process.

It is a good damn canoe and I’ve learned over time to trust it. It won’t sink. The aft and bow are filled with life-saving Styrofoam and if it is all mangled up and you are in deep or fast waters you can grab on and she’ll take you out. It is a good damn canoe.

Without a good paddle though, you have nothing.

She’s been made from pine and weighs less then a pound. She was hand carved from a single chunk of wood and she was made with love. The handle lets a clammy palm cozy around it and when fear strikes and the grip tightens down its well worn shaft there comes a feeling of secureness.

As long as you hang on that paddle will look after you.

Here she is though, She is split up the middle and she looks aged and worn. Exhausted, dry and bitter.

I’d like to put her down, break her in half and put her in the burn barrel. Once a paddle splits you know there is no going back. The nature of wood demands that she retract from her innards once it develops an open sore. Hot sun pulls her in, wet swells her with the glory days of life once lived. Wood is not inert and the passion of these opposing forces forces puts pressure on the continual dioramic movement of the cell level integrity.

Once she breaks, there is no stopping it.

Sure, I can apply a bandage and she can still live for a few more days but the bottom line becomes, she can’t be trusted anymore.

Ode to a paddle, a silly thing indeed.

You might think.

If she fails you fail. When your life is on the line, you need to hear the deep ‘thunk’ of solid wood, the reverberation of confidence.

Ode to you paddle, you're long life has reached it's extent and today, is a sad, sad day.