Two Really Old Canoeing Books
Caveat: I'm addressing these two old canoeing books in a single post not because they're thematically similar, but because they're both of a comparable age, and because both were loaned to me by the same individual and I want to return them together. Woods and Lakes of Maine , by Lucius L. Hubbard (1884, James R. Osgood & Co., Boston), has the lengthy subtitle "A Trip from Moosehead Lake to New Brunswick in a Birch-Bark Canoe to which are added Some Indian Place-Names and their Meanings." Hubbard's trip, conducted in 1881, was for purely recreational purposes. It involved one friend, and two Indian guides, and two canoes: one bark, one cedar/canvas. A Maine Guide of the present day, Mike Everett, has written a nice capsule review of Hubbard's book . After condemning most contemporary books of this type as being too bigoted and too much self-absorbed by the authors' interest in killing things, he writes about Hubbard, in contrast: "Lucius Hub...