Old Town Pack
I have an Old Town Pack, and here’s why.
Super light, at 33 lbs. That’s lighter than alot of kayaks. I always get looks when I put in or pull out at boat launches where the parking area is up the hill from the launch. I just walk with my canoe on my shoulder, and all my gear including paddles and flyrod strapped in my boat. I very easily carry it on my shoulder.
Length. I hang mine in the basement where I dont have to worry about the effects of the sun on the Hull, hornets building nests, or someone stealing it. I can bring it in the front door, around a corner to the basement, and hang it up. A longer or heavier boat would be a problem. Also, since it’s a 12 footer, and very light, I dont use racks. I drop the tailgate, slide it in the truck bed with the tailgate down. There’s 8 feet in and 4 feet out. A longer or heavier boat sitting in this position would lead to hull distortion (especially in the sun).
Open decks. I fish, I carry gear, I can trap out of it, duck hunt. It’s just a joy and so easy to manage.
Stability. I’ve just recently began pushing this boat to see what kind of stability it has. Streams, and larger ponds and lakes with a wind chop or boat traffic are no problem for my little pack canoe. For me, it does everything perfectly. It’s very manuverable, love a kayak paddle, you can use a single blade but it wont be super fast. I know a guy that fishes for Stripers in his! I honstly cant say enough about mine…I’m actually building up my courage to try polling it!
I don’t agree. I’ve been in a rec kayak
and its decks were significantly lower than decks on an open pack canoe of equal capacity. The cockpit was big enough that I could raise my knees, but much smaller than the water entry aperture would be in an equivalent pack canoe. So for an equivalent carrying capacity, a properly designed rec kayak should be a little dryer, and less susceptible to wind.
This is not putting down pack canoes. I don’t see anyone portaging two miles between ponds in a rec kayak, not even if it were made as light as possible.
Further historical research on Rushton
After writing my earlier post, I became concerned that I was too skeptical about the historical place of Rushton’s Nessmuk canoes – and canoe history is of great interest to me. So, I finally found my Rushton biography, “Rushton and His Times in American Canoeing” by Atwood Manley, which I hadn’t read in 20 years.
I went over the parts of the book that might give some indication as to how popular Nessmuk canoes really were, and read some of Nessmuk’s writings. All the quotes in this post are taken from that book.
There is no hard evidence as to the number of Nessmuk-type canoes made, but there are some clues. Bottom line, I would guess Rushton made about 250 at most, between 1880 and his death in 1906, which were probably shipped all over the U.S. and not necessarily concentrated in the Adirondacks.
Nessmuk (George Washington Sears), a shoemaker from Pennsylvania, contacted Rushton in late 1880 to make him a canoe weighing less than 20 pounds. Nessmuk was about 60, very short, very sickly and weighed somewhere between 100 and 108 pounds.
At that time, the lightest canoe in Rushton’s catalog was a 13 footer at 35 pounds. One could speculate that this was not a big seller. Rushton’s business was early dominated by “cruising canoes” of the Rob Roy type (decked, sails, rudder, double blade), rowboats, dingys and, from the late 90’s to his death, by wood and canvas open canoes of the Peterborough, Canada design.
I think one can reasonably conclude that, as of 1880, no one was making, buying or using sub-35 pound canoes in the Adirondacks or anywhere else, much less sub-20 or sub-12 pound canoes.
Rushton thought a 20 pound canoe was foolish, but he acceded to Nessmuk’s request because of his diminutive stature, ill health and reputation as a writer for Forest and Stream magazine.
We know that Rushton made five miniature canoes for Sears between 1880 and 1885. In order, they were named:
1. Wood Drake (or Nessmuk No. 1). 10’ long x 26”width x 8” depth, about 18 lbs including the paint.
2. Susan Nipper. “Slightly wider” than Wood Drake and about 16 lbs.
3. Sairy Gamp. 9’ x 26” x 6”, 10.5 lbs. Rushton warned Nessmuk that he “would not warrant her for an hour” of paddling and that “she may go to pieces like an eggshell.” This was the model that Nessmuk made famous in his articles for Forest and Stream. He returned the canoe to Rushton after his one journey in it. Rushton kept it and used it as his best marketing tool, by displaying it as the world’s lightest canoe at exhibitions all over the country. And, importantly, it has survived intact in museums. Thus Sairy Gamp has become perhaps the most famous canoe in history and, as far as I can tell, is the source of all the history and mythology about “Nessmuk canoes”.
4. Bucktail. No dimensions given, but said to be stronger and deeper than the first three at 23 lbs. Nessmuk realized that there wasn’t really a market for canoes that could fit only men of his “exceptional” size (a male chauvinist viewpoint), so the Bucktail was conceived as the ultra-lightweight canoe “for the average canoeist of 150 to 160 pounds.”
5. Rushton-Fairbanks. 8.5’ x 23” x 8”; 9 lbs., 15 oz. This was the smallest and lightest canoe ever built by Rushton in the Nessmuk series. It was specifically ordered for the wife of a friend of Nessmuk in Tarpon Springs, Florida, who “was jubilant at the thought that she could make her own carries without help from the male element.” The carries being referred to were from the shore to the water.
The last two boats were used by Nessmuk and his friends in Florida, not in the Adirondacks.
The only other evidence of numbers I could find is in a letter Rushton wrote to Sears in 1883, at which time he had been making the Wood Drake for two or three years: “I thought when I built the Nessmuk, no one else would ever want one. But I now build about a dozen of them a year.”
The question is whether this volume increased or decreased. Sears’ writings were Rushton’s marketing tool, but Sears’ three Adirondack journeys were in 1880, 1881 and 1883 -- the last being the famous Sairy Gamp journey. Query whether the Nessmuk hype died down after the mid-80’s. Rushton also had up and down years as the economy swung in and out of recessions and recreation fads changed. The bicycle hurt his business badly beginning in the late 1880’s, and the Canadian canoe styles began to dominate canoe production in the 1890’s.
Rushton apparently kept the Bucktail and Nessmuk model in his catalog over the years. However, he also featured a 17 man, 30 foot war canoe. He admitted featuring the Nessmuk line for marketing reasons: “I do not publish this statement [an endorsement by Nessmuk about the lightest canoes ever made] to persuade anyone that they better buy an eighteen pound canoe, for very few men would like one so small, but rather to show that … the purchaser of the larger sizes has nothing to fear for their strength and seaworthiness.”
My speculation is that 12 per year is the probably maximum amount of Nessmuk type boats built from 1880 to 1906. They seemed to be shipped all over the country – the records showing Florida, Buffalo and Michigan. This number would have been a rounding error to Rushton. In 1906, the year of Rushton’s death, 750 Indian Girl model wood-canvas canoes were produced.
I further speculate that most Nessmuk-type canoes, like the one to Tarpon Springs, were ordered as “toys” for women and children from about 1880 to 1895 – not as hiking and portaging boats for Adirondack woodsmen.
Must’ve be a relatively small cockpitted
rec kayak and not one of the plastic Krugers.
I paddle high angle in solo canoes as well as kayaks with a 230cm paddle in the canoes and the water dumps on my feet and legs below the knees. If the cockpit extends past my knees and is 18" wide or wider, water is coming in the boat and landing on my legs and feet.
If one uses low angle and a long paddle (8’ or 9’), or the cockpit is shorter than 36", then water dripping into the boat may not be much of an issue.
Yes, of course rec kayaks will have less windage than open canoes of similar length.
The portage on grown-up trails…
Easily portaged, manicured trails...along with solid, dry land around the perimeter of bogs often doesn't exist. Your local chapter of the Forest Service rarely makes it up into the real woods. Often areas that have been cut...are laden with lots of tangled bits of limbs and branches = not easy walking...you need to steady the canoe with one hand and use the other for balance. Mother nature rules, along with beaver. A smaller(and light) canoe, as said, makes picking your path through the brush an easier lift...usually with one hand holding on as your other hand is often quite useful in preventing a nasty fall.
Better rec kayak?
So in place of a rec kayak, they are lighter, easier to pack and portage, and just a little less seaworthy. That makes sense - might be fun for people who aren't quite as big/strong to use for short trips around the cottage.
There was one for sale nearby, at a great price. I wanted it, as I like a bargain, but can't justify it as it seems like other than the weight, it is worse than canoes I already own. Incidentally, anybody know if the Wenonah Wee Lassie would hold me at nearly 200, and a bit of day-tripping stuff - say another 30 lbs, and still perform as intended?
I am glad they exist, though, and happy that we as canoeists can choose from many available models from 12-20 feet (and then there's them fancy decked canoes you sit on the floor of and paddle with a double blade).
It was a 13’ Old Town , an "otter"
I believe, and it is routinely used to cross the inlet between Tybee Island and Little Tybee Island. I think if there had been waves, I could have used my open boat skills to avoid most of the slosh.
Wee Lassie
The Wenonah Wee Lassie will easily float 230lbs. I've paddled my Wenonah Wee Lassie on the lakes and tidal creeks of Cape Cod, on the Cedar River Flow and the Bog River Flow in the Adirondacks, on many tidal creeks in Maryland and in Virginia, and on the local lakes here in central Virginia. I'm not saying that my pack canoe replaces my other boats, but it is fun, light and very capable. I paddle with a 240cm double bladed paddle with a relaxed, low angle stroke and hardly get wet at all. And just for the record I'm 5'11", 220lbs and generally carry 10 to 20 lbs. when daytripping.
Thanks for bringing
this up
"So, I finally found my Rushton biography, “Rushton and His Times in American Canoeing” by Atwood Manley, which I hadn’t read in 20 years."
Shamefully I LIVED in Canton and have not read the book.
Good excerpts..and I will look for that one at the WCHA Assembly if the antique book people come.
Disregard..its on Amazon!
Double bladed paddles
just to add something about double bladed paddles: Some people complain about getting wet, but I think their approach is flawed. You use a longer paddle, and use relaxed angles during the stroke. I use a 260mm double paddle by FoxWorx, and would love to try a 280mm as I think it would be even drier and possibly more powerful.
There is the matter of definition
Different smallish canoes are being discussed in this thread, and there is no official definition of “pack canoe” that I know of.
I have no interest in any manufacturer, but the pack canoes that are actually modeled on Rushton’s Nessmuk boats and that are the shortest and lightest seem to be made by Hornbeck and Hemlock.
http://www.hornbeckboats.com/pricing/pricing.htm
http://www.hemlockcanoe.com/nessmuk.html
I don’t know the size and weights of the Bell and Wenonah models mentioned.
Mike Galt had a miniature boat in the 1980’s that I think he called the Bucktail. I thought it was a gimmick. If you shifted your weight by 8 inches you could go from a bow ender to a stern ender.
It wouldn’t surprise me if native American Indians and backyard builders have been building little canoes for centuries. Seems like a natural thing for a craftsman to try to do, even if there is little market potential.
low angle stroke
and key the length to the width of your boat.
I use a 240 in my RapidFire. And a 230 works.
In a constant flare boat I would never be able to go that short.
There is some opinion that the longer you go with a paddle the more sweep gets into your stroke. I would think that can be counterbalanced by a shorter stroke ending at your hip.
No wetness here.
No wetness with 230cm?
I don’t know how people manage that. I guess that I use too high of an angle and too much rotation for open boats.
interesting post
Thanks for all this good information. I posted a couple of months ago that I’m considering getting a pack canoe to replace my sot. I haven’t acted on it yet but this post is helping me lean towards the pack canoe. Weight has been the biggest factor in my need to make a change. Old Town Canoe is easily accessible to me, but the others are not as far as I know. I’ll keep looking. Good topic for discussion- thanks.
Pack Canoes
Here are Wenonah and Bell
http://www.wenonah.com/products/template/product_detail.php?IID=194&SID=921ecd80b71400fa426ef37029f5b384
http://www.bellcanoe.com/products/default.asp?page=product&id=599&catid=195
Lets add Placid for completeness
I find the workmanship first rate.
More important they paid attention to the little details like materials. Its not the what is in the boat only…its also the where and why a fabric is selected and laid in a certain way.
I am very rough on boats and my RapidFire has not been a disappointment. Its got that name for a real reason…not just a marketing come on.
http://placidboats.com/index1.html
Whatever one you choose it may extend your paddling travels in comfort and make possible trips you never imagined you could do.
The only sweeter pack boat I have seen is made by Loon Works and I believe it is one of a kind.
Light weight winner is Hornbeck
Looking at the specs in all the links so far reveals that Hornbeck has the lightest canoe at 10 pounds.
The only canoe lighter was Rushton’s fifth canoe for Nessmuk and Mrs. K in Tarpon Springs, the Rushton-Fairbanks at 9 lbs, 15 oz. Nessmuk wrote that, in order for the canoe to “stay in a lumpy sea”, “she is to have a light cloth decking and a cockpit withal, like the able-bodied canoes of the A.C.A.”
Sorry Mrs. K, Nessmuk and A.C.A., but you all are kayaking.
??
Mine can be paddled with a canoe paddle.
Watch that light.
One of Platt Monforts Geodesic Airlite boats comes in at 8 lbs. Its a sweetie.
But I wont take it to the basalt of the boreal forest.
I like Peter but he lost this one.
Hi Trish,
I remember that thread. I took the plunge and bought a Vermont Tupper, and I couldn’t be happier. I hope you have the chance to try one. You could contact Rob and see where he is going to be for demos. He seems to be going all over the northeast.
Weight was a big factor for me, too. My little rec kayak weighs 38 #, the Tupper just 25#, and what difference that makes at the end of the day.
My little canoe, fast, maneuverable, and downright pretty is just perfect for me.
Good luck; maybe you’ll be a canoe head soon.