y to make several carries in one
day, aggregating as much as ten miles, besides from fifteen to twenty
miles under paddle. No heavy, decked, paddling or sailing canoe would
have been available for such a trip with a man of ordinary muscle.

The difference between a lone, independent cruise through an almost
unbroken wilderness and cruising along civilized routes, where the
canoeist can interview farm houses and village groceries for supplies,
getting gratuitous stonings from the small boy and much reviling from
ye ancient mariner of the towpath--I say, the difference is just
immense. Whence it comes that I always prefer a very light, open canoe;
one that I can carry almost as easily as my hat, and yet that will
float me easily, buoyantly and safely. And such a canoe was my last
cruiser. She only weighed ten and one-half pounds when first launched,
and after an all summer rattling by land and water had only gained half
a pound. I do not therefore advise anyone to buy a ten and a half pound
canoe; although she would prove competent for a skilful lightweight.
She was built to order, as a test of lightness and was the third
experiment in that line.

I have nothing to say against the really fine canoes that are in
highest favor today. Were I fond of sailing and satisfied to cruise on
routes where clearings are more plentiful than carries, I dare say I
should run a Shadow, or Stella Maris, at a cost of considerably more
than $100--though I should hardly call it a "poor man's yacht."

Much is being said and written at the present day as to the "perfect
canoe." One writer decides in favor of a Pearl 15 x 31 1/2 inches. In
the same column another says, "the perfect canoe does not exist." I
should rather say there are several types of the modern canoe, each
nearly perfect in its way and for the use to which it is best adapted.
The perfect paddling canoe is by no means perfect under canvas and vice
versa. The best cruiser is not a perfect racer, while neither of them
is at all perfect as a paddling cruiser where much carrying is to be
done. And the most perfect canoe for fishing and gunning around
shallow, marshy waters, would be a very imperfect canoe for a rough and
ready cruise of one hundred miles through a strange wilderness, where a
day's cruise will sometimes include a dozen miles of carrying.

Believing, as I do, that the light, single canoe with double-bladed
paddle is bound to soon become a leading--if not the leading