With Gun &P Rod in Canada 



I was, as I remember, generally successful in guiding 

 my craft safely into the still water above the run, where 

 with a long sigh after my Herculean efforts we would sit 

 and look at each other with mutual admiration. The 

 run down also was exhilarating, there being one menacing 

 rock which had to be avoided with rare skill as we drifted 

 toward the boat-house. 



Nevertheless, in spite of the natural placidity of the 

 Charles River between Waltham and Newton Lower 

 Falls, drowning accidents were regrettably frequent, 

 as the boat liveries would lease a canoe to anyone who 

 came along with the required deposit. The most 

 frequent cause of the capsizing of a canoe was over- 

 confidence in its stability. Accidents were caused by 

 the occupants of the craft trying to change places or 

 standing up. I was not naturally overcautious, but I 

 heartily disliked the humiliation of thoroughly wetting 

 and spoiling my canoe furnishings, which generally 

 included a girl. 



Consequently, I learned at an early age that accidents 

 in a canoe could be avoided by remembering three things: 

 To sit down, sit in the middle, and sit still. Looking 

 back on two decades of the most strenuous kind of 

 canoeing for business and pleasure, I find that these three 

 rules are still applicable when using a canoe anywhere. 

 Standing up in a canoe is never without danger, but, 

 like walking a slack wire, it is a good trick if you can 

 do it, and a tremendous time and energy saver when the 

 alternative is to unload a heavily laden canoe, portage 

 the supplies around a fall or rapid, and carry the canoe 

 around also. 



Now, believing that a reader of this book would not be 

 at all interested in this matter of poling a canoe in swift 

 water unless he had had previous canoe training, I have 

 endeavoured to so take the photographs that they depict 



142 



