My Swim
I took a canoe day trip last spring that ended in a swim -- not an epic one, but the biggest that I've experienced, and the first for my son. I manned the stern of my Adirondack St. Regis , a 17-foot Kevlar cruiser; my son Max, then 10, manned the bow. Friend Tim was in the stern of his canoe, an Old Town Penobscot 16, with his son, Paul, also 10, in bow. The previous year, this same team had done a 6-day trip on the St. Croix River, between Maine and New Brunswick. This time, we were on the St. George River in midcoast Maine. It was our first trip of the year -- kind of a warmup for a weeklong trip on the Allagash planned for later in the year. We put in at Seventrees Pond in Union, and the first nine tenths of the trip was flatwater : first the pond, then the river. Several hundred yards above the planned takeout at Payson Park in Warren, the river goes over a steep shelf, which we portaged. Thereafter, it was a very bony Class II. Lots of pushing against the bottom, half...
