Armchair Paddler: An Anthology of Canoeing, Kayaking, and Rafting Adventures

By: Cecil Kuhne

A roster of experienced boaters and renowned authors make for riveting, unforgettable tales of thrilling exploration. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0897323297
• ISBN13: 9780897323291
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Menasha Ridge Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.2" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Good Collection

The image of the boatman on a river or alone at sea sets off a whole range literary claxons. With this legacy, which naturally leads to a heightened feeling of grandeur, it is a wonder that everyone who has ever set paddle to water has not felt impelled to likewise set pen to paper in attempt to claim his place as some sort of modern Odysseus. Of course, many paddlers have, without much success. There have also been, however, a few excellent writings by boaters. The Armchair Paddler, subtitled, Adventures by Canoe, Kayak, and Raft, is a collection of these writings.The best stories and essays in this collection are written by authors who are able to keep their ego from interfering with their story. In John Hildebrand's account of paddling the Yukon (Reading the River), he reflects on the lessons he learns from the river with such honest humility that it is impossible not to be taken in. Hildebrand's prose is just as appealing. He knows exactly which details to include so that in one well pruned sentence you are right there beside him: "The truck rocked in the wind as we parked above a beach littered with tethered skiffs and dogs curled in the mud."In "The Starship and the Canoe," Kenneth Bower nearly disappears from his own narrative. As he describes the first kayakers, the Aleuts and Eskimos, who "practice ten different rolls to meet ten different contingencies at sea" and can repair broken boats at sea, he has sense enough to step quietly out of the text. While Whit Deschner remains flamboyantly visible in his story, he is ready and able to laugh at himself. In an excerpt from "Travels with Kayak," we get to see the rivers of Pakistan through the eyes of a roguish humorist. Deschner leads up to his tale with a discussion of junk mail: "In the return, stamped envelopes into which I was supposed to merrily deposit my checking account, I instead stuffed rat droppings. I added the following advice. `The enclosed feces are from laboratory rats that may have been used in experiments involving highly contagious diseases. When you are through washing your hands please delete my name from your mailing list.'"Unfortunately, The Armchair Paddler does not succeed in entirely separating the flotsam from the jetsam. There are several stories written by hands more accustomed to a pair of oars than a keyboard. More obnoxious is the rare piece whose subject is simply a veil for the author's proclamation of his own heroism. But these are in the minority and though they do not reach the bar set by the other writers, they will interest those involved in the sport.The Armchair Paddler introduced me to several excellent unknown authors but it also has its share of famous writers. There are essays by Wallace Stegner, John McPhee, Eric Sevareid and an excerpt from James Dickey's seminal Deliverence. The book is broken up into seven sections: Beginnings, Big Drops, The Far North, The Grand Canyon, Journeys Abroad, Out to Sea, and Preserving our Rivers