At 09:32 AM 3/31/98 -0600, Bearss, Steve wrote: >My two cents worth on paddling-speed vs power. >The voyageurs, who certainly were not weekend type people, paddled >narrow-bladed paddles faster than a stroke per second. And they did it >for hours on end, in a loaded canoe half the time, the other half >upriver. Often loaded and upriver at the same time. But they didn't paddle up river all the time, there was a lot of tracking and hauling along shore. They'd stop every 2 hours for a "pipe" meaning smoke one (probably tobacco <grin>), so it wasn't that many hours on end. Days were long though, often from before sunup to after sundown. And days up north are loooooooooong in the summertime. >Work-related disability may be a modern term but the company could not >afford for these people to pull up lame 300 miles into a 2000+ mile >journey. Maybe not, but a very common cause of death to voyageurs was a strangulated hernia. >P.S. By the way, these guys would carry 2, sometimes 3, 90 lb. bales of >furs over the portage trails. I don't remember the exact poundage, but the record was like 600 to 700 lbs by some crazy French Canadian for some ungodly distance. And they often RAN over the portage, not walked. Sea kayakers have it easy. Hank *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Mar 31 1998 - 15:25:29 PST
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