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August, 2006
Curse of the Canoe Cart
By Randy Randall
Oh boy! This was going to be slick.
That portage between Holeb and Attean Ponds had been a pain in our necks for years, but this time we had it licked. This time we had wheels. We'd thought about this problem all winter and talked about how we could make a rotten situation better. Jerry and I had been over that carry a couple of times before, and each time we vowed never again. If it wasn't the mud, it was the roots, and if it wasn't the roots, it was boulders and stones, and if it wasn't that it was the damned black flies. No fun. Just no fun at all. Well we couldn't do much about the black flies except use lots of Ben's when we doped up. The other problem was that both time and enthusiasm have a way of clouding old memories and it didn't take more then a few beers for us to forget the trials and tribulations of that ornery portage and began eagerly planning our next Moose River Bow trip.
That's when Jerry found the wheels. Someone evidently had returned them to L.L. Bean and Jerry found them in the discount store with our name on them.
"See," he said when he took the wheels out of his truck to show me. "We just flop the wheels down and strap them onto the bottom of the canoe and then it's easy sledding across the trail."
Well, no doubt rolling the canoe would sure beat lugging it.
"Sure," said Jerry. "And we can just keep all our gear in the canoe because the canoe stays upright. See. All we have to do is push and steer. Lets' try it," he said as he headed for my garage.
It didn't take long to lower the Old Town Tripper down from the rafters and set it on the wheels. We finagled a little getting it to the balance point then cinched down with the straps designed to hold the whole rig in place.
"See," Jerry said again, "even one guy can do this," and he rolled the canoe down the driveway with all the ease of pushing a wheelbarrow.
"What do you think?" he said. "These will be great. We'll just lash them on top of the gear when we paddle across Attean."
"Right," I said.
So here we were, grounding out on the little beach right there on the west shore of Attean Pond. We'd had a nice easy paddle across and now the prospect of just rolling the canoe along the well-worn portage was most appealing. We'd make the whole carry in just one trip and have the camp set up on the other end in time for a leisurely dinner, a cold beer before supper and a good nights sleep before proceeding across Holeb and down the Moose River. Nowadays a lot of trippers skip this portage and put in on Holeb, but Jerry and I were traditionalist and always went for the "Full Monty."
"Ok," Jerry said way too cheerfully. "Let's set this baby on its carriage."
This time the loaded canoe was a little harder to center and balance then when we'd experimented with it empty back in my driveway.
"Tighten those straps down really hard," Jerry said.
As we had expected, the bugs were all too eager to greet and eat so we lathered up with DEET and more DEET, and hit the trail. Jerry took the lead, tugging and steering the rolling canoe behind him as if he was leading a reluctant mule, and I pushed obligingly from behind. It was a little awkward having to stoop over, as the wheels weren't all that tall so the canoe was not too high off the ground, but hey, it sure beat lugging and making two trips. Then we hit the first mud hole. All the tramping feet of canoers who had preceded us had left this soft place in the trail the consistency of mush. We quickly sank above our ankles and the rolling canoe suddenly developed brakes.
What the…?
The axles for the wheels were sinking into the mud. We found ourselves pushing and shoving the wheeled cart right through the mud.
"We got to lift the canoe up," Jerry said, overstating the obvious.
"Right," I said and we grabbed on and grunted and lifted the canoe with all our gear in it and the wagon fastened underneath all above the mud and carried the whole long affair to the far side of the mud patch. When we hit solid footing we collapsed. We looked like mud wrestlers, and the canoe was splattered all over with mud and dirt.
"Hey look," Jerry said, ever the optimist. "The trail looks good from here on."
First we had a water break, then picked up our respective ends and began to trundle the canoe toward Holeb.
But the trail was narrow. Hundreds of passing feet had beaten down a path suitable for a person to pass, but not for wheels. The portage was no roadway.
We found ourselves twisting and turning the canoe to negotiate between trees, and around rocks.
"Over here," Jerry would yell, and he'd yank the bow in one direction.
"Push," he'd shout, and I'd give the canoe a good shove.
"OK, over here," he'd say, and steer the bow toward the next obstacle. "OK. We're good," he'd say. "We're good."
And then we hit another rock. This time the low axle of the cart fetched up against a high boulder. Where people carrying their boats had merely walked up and over the imposing rock, our handy dandy vehicle had bumped up against it and stopped.
"We got to lift it over," Jerry said.
So we grunted once more and slid right into the next mud hole. Again we half shoved, half rolled, half swam that foolish canoe through the quagmire.
"Wow, this is a mess," Jerry opined, again exercising his penchant for overstating the obvious. "This has got to get better," he said.
But it didn't. Once through one mud puddle, we stumbled right into another. Then we really bumped a boulder hard and knocked the wheels cockeyed.
"Wait. Wait," Jerry said, "We got to straighten the wheels."
We quickly found the flimsy straps used for holding the canoe to the cart slipped every time we hit a root or a stump or another rock. The cart would twist and the straps would loosen. The cart would gradually creep backward, and as the canoe hull narrowed toward the stern the cart would become looser and looser until we had to call a halt and reposition the whole rig. By now we had sweated out all the reserve energy we had conserved during our easy paddle of the morning and the trail wasn't getting any easier. What should have been a relatively easy mile-long portage was turning into a sort of Maine woods death march. We were about half way across the carry - and both pooped out - when we stopped for a drink and reconnoiter. We estimated we had carried the canoe with our gear piled in it about half of the distance so far and the other half we'd struggled like maniacs just to keep the cart moving along the too narrow trail.
"We're never going to make it at this rate," Jerry said.
"Yeah," I agreed. "Kind of a bummer."
"Well, what do you think?"
"Nothing to do but lug boat." I said.
Jerry stood up, and agreed.
"Guess you're right. It's probably OK to leave our stuff right here in a pile beside the trail."
"Yeah. Anyone wants that cart they're welcome to it."
With that we lifted the canoe onto our shoulders, each of us grabbed a paddle and we struck out for the campground at Holeb. A long half hour later we arrived. Along the way we had stopped maybe three times to rest, reset the canoe and catch our breath. The day was creeping on so we ditched the canoe and quickly headed back for our stuff. For a moment we thought of just abandoning the useless cart, but in the end Jerry allowed as how he was going to get his money back, so we schlepped the cart along with us too. Dark was just settling on when we made it to Holeb and all our plans for a lovely evening and easy supper went down the drain.
"I'm beat," Jerry said. "Let's forget the tent and sleep under the canoe."
"OK with me," I said.
Together we tipped the canoe up on its side, stuffed our packs up in the bow and the stern and stretched out beneath the thwarts. In a few minutes all I could hear was the sound of Jerry's heavy breathing, the waves lapping on the shore and the mosquitoes holding a council of war around my head. But I also began to remember my Dad, because as a kid I recalled seeing a canoe carrier he and his hunting buddies had created. Jerry's cart was not without precedent, but it seemed fairly obvious to me that the people who had designed Jerry's wagon had never tried rolling a loaded canoe across the Attean - Holeb portage trail. If they had, they would have built a carrier like Dad's.
Dad and his friends had built theirs back in the 1940's using the front fork and wheel from an old bicycle and some scrap two-by-fours. To say their carrier was some old rugged was to understate the case. This thing was heavy and strong. The two-bys formed a cross which was padded with old fire hose and that's what the canoe sat on. There was a socket hole drilled into some built up two by fours to receive the neck of the bicycle fork. There was a crossbar made from wood and scrap steel. Long pieces of threaded steel rod and wing nuts were used to sandwich the canoe tightly between the crossbar and the frame and wheel underneath. With those tightened up, nothing could dislodge the canoe from its cradle.
What's more, the 24-inch bicycle wheel put the canoe high enough off the ground so it was easy for guys to hold on to. Once balanced on the single wheel, the canoe was also easy to steer between trees and alongside rocks. The single tire tracked right along the narrow footpath of the portage. The large diameter wheel made it easy to roll the canoe up and over boulders and there was no axle to get hung up on rocks or stuck in the mud. Deer hunters have a similar one-wheeled wagon with handles on both ends that they use for hauling a deer out of the woods.
Before succumbing to weariness and sleep, I wondered what had happened to that old homemade carrier. I hadn't seen it around Dad's place for years, but I could still recall how it was put together. Those old guys knew a thing or two. Maybe when Jerry got his money back for the folding canoe cart there might be enough left over for us to buy a few two-by-fours and some wing nuts. I'm sure I remembered seeing an old bicycle at the dump.
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