I Can Kayak. Canoe?
Hiatus Day 138 of the "Statue of Liberty<>Gateway Arch Runyak Expedition
Nearly every year in February for well over a decade Hope and I have traveled up to Michigan’s largest inland lake, Houghton. We are invited by the Michigan chapter of the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association. WOODEN CANOE! Hell, I’ve never owned any sort of canoe. They must have thought they could convert me.
We always stay at Windemere Lodge which is over a hundred years old and it looks its age although very well kept.
I really love how the floor creeks wherever you walk. What truly gives away the age of the lodge is the built-in iceboxes, which in its day, before refrigerators, must have been high tech.
Today the ice boxes are used as storage cupboards. There are plenty of other reminders to let you know you are lodging in the past. Yet, it has been modernized with today’s technology. The living room is very cozy and has a large fireplace. It is where, in the ten times we’ve stayed there, we gathered on Saturday nights and I entertained with my guitar.
I’m a paying member of the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association. I haven’t been converted yet, and still do not own a canoe. So, how did I ever get involved in this group of canoeing enthusiast? Bill Hart.
Bill and I have been good friends for decades. Many know Bill as the father of the Frankenmuth Volkslaufe, which if you are a runner in Michigan, more than likely you have ran. The race has been around since 1976. Making it one of the oldest road races in Michigan. Older than The Crim.
I don’t recall ever seeing Bill in a kayak before. It’s always been, me kayak, Bill canoe, never the twain shall meet. But I didn’t hesitate when he invited me to the Houghton Lake Winter Gathering back in 2012. In the ten times I’ve gone I’ve met over fifty of the nicest people that have ever put paddle to water, and none have ever tried to convert me.
Of all my paddle partners, Bill would rank third in miles that I have paddled with after my bpp, Kate, and my good buddy Lonnie. Oddly, I believe the only waterway I’ve ever paddled with Bill, is the Cass River, his home watershed. And, although a lifetime runner, I’ve never converted him into a runyaker!
It was only a year or two after getting Swiftee I paddled the Cass River from Tuscola, MI to Frankenmuth with Bill. Later, in 2008, Bill came up with a paddle event we’ve we’ve now been doing for 16 years. For sure it will never rival the Volkslaufe as the greatest event he’s ever started. Last Best Day on the Cass, is what he named it. It’s always an evening in late October or early November, when the fall colors are still on the banks. We start west of Frankenmuth and paddle only two miles upriver into town. The two miles back is much faster, going with the current. By the time we do get back it’s dark. It’s an event I look forward to every year, not just for the paddle but also the bonfire after. Because of Bill and myself, the fall Cass paddle is equally represented by canoers and kayakers.
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A sighting of me in a canoe is as rare as seeing Bigfoot. Some paddlers may tell you I was in one July 25, 2020. That would be three weeks after I fell from a bike and had reconstruction surgery on a broken collarbone. I was ordered by the surgeon, no kayaking for six weeks. So then, who is the passenger that Kate paddled from Fenton, MI to Linden, MI on the Shiawassee River in this photo?
This is the only photo evidence they have of me being in a canoe. Somebody is in a canoe in a white t-shirt. But is it really me?
Gee, ice boxes! I remember one of my aunt's had one of those. Thanks for the memory!
WIll do.
Is is a little elusive