The paper boat, also, will not stand much cutting on sharp stones, and it is not buoyant when swamped, unless fitted with water-tight compartments, which I abhor.
The canvas is rather a logy, limp sort of craft, to my thinking, and liable to drown her crew if swamped.
But each and all have their admirers, and purchasers as well, while each is good in its way, and I only mention a few reasons for my preference of the cedar.
When running an ugly rapid or crossing a stormy lake, I like to feel that I have enough light, seasoned wood under me to keep my mouth and nose above water all day, besides saving the rifle and knapsack, which, when running into danger, I always tie to the ribbing with strong linen line, as I do the paddle also, giving it about line enough to just allow free play.
I am not--to use a little modern slang--going to "give myself away" on canoeing, or talk of startling adventure. But, for the possible advantage of some future canoeist, I will briefly relate what happened to me on a certain windy morning one summer. It was on one of the larger lakes--no matter which--between Paul Smith's and the Fulton Chain. I had camped over night in a spot that did not suit me in the least, but it seemed the best I could do then and there. The night was rough, and the early morning threatening. However, I managed a cup of coffee, "tied in," and made a slippery carry of two miles a little after sunrise. Arrived on the shore of the lake, things did not look promising. The whirling, twirling clouds were black and dangerous looking, the crisp, dark waves were crested with spume, and I had a notion of just making a comfortable camp and waiting for better weather. But the commissary department was reduced to six Boston crackers, with a single slice of pork, and it was twelve miles of wilderness to the nearest point of supplies, four miles of it carries, included. Such weather might last a week, and I decided to go. For half an hour I sat on the beach, taking weather notes. The wind was northeast; my course was due west, giving me four points free. Taking five feet of strong line, I tied one end under a rib next the keelson, and the other around the paddle. Stripping to shirt and drawers, I stowed everything in the knapsack, and tied that safely in the fore peak. Then I swung out. Before I was a half mile out, I fervently wished myself back. But it was too late. How that little, corky, light canoe did bound and snap, with a constant tendency to come up in the wind's eye, that kept me on the qui vive every instant. She shipped no water; she was too buoyant for that. But she was all the time in danger of pitching her crew overboard. It soon came to a crisis. About the middle of the lake, on the north side, there is a sharp, low gulch that runs away back through the hills, looking like a level cut through a railroad embankment. And down this gulch came a fierce thunder gust that was like a small cyclone. It knocked down trees, swept over the lake, and--caught the little canoe on the crest of a wave, right under the garboard streak. I went overboard like a shot; but I kept my grip on the paddle. That grip was worth a thousand dollars to the "Travelers' Accidental"; and another thousand to the "Equitable Company," because the paddle, with its line, enabled me to keep the canoe in hand, and prevent her from going away to leeward like a dry leaf. When I once got my nose above water, and my hand on her after stem, I knew I had the whole business under control. Pressing the stem down, I took a look inboard. The little jilt! She had not shipped a quart of water. And there was the knapsack, the rod, the little auxiliary paddle, all just as I had tied them in; only the crew and the double-blade had gone overboard. As I am elderly and out of practice in the swimming line, and it was nearly half a mile to a lee shore, and, as I was out of breath and water-logged, it is quite possible that a little forethought and four cents' worth of fishline saved--the insurance companies two thousand dollars.