Pete: John Winters is a prolific writer in the paddlewise mail list. Thought you would be interested in his dissertation here. Jim
attached mail follows:
My dear friend and occasional research assistant John Winters has asked that I post to this thread. I was born April 3, 1939. I recall my first roll while in my mother's womb possibly as a result of her getting a tattoo of a kayak on her belly with the longitudinal center of gravity located precisely at her navel. I was a precocious child and spoke four Inuit and three Cree dialects by the age of 7. Needless to say, I had exceptional paddling skills having been taught by the famous Juanissee. At the age of 10 I made my fist open water crossing paddling across Lake Superior in a home made dugout canoe. I used my father's inflatable dolls as supplementary stability with the blonde strapped to the port side and the brunette on the starboard side. Had I been aware of patents at the time I would have been as rich as that fellow who stole my idea. I completed my formal education at the age of twelve and set out to make my mark in Inuit anthropology. My first book, Playing Doctor in Inuit communities established me as an authority on Inuit sexual mores and is still the standard text on the topic. The strain of research soon forced me to shift my field of study to Inuit kayaks and I as the first to properly define the Greenland kayak and its derivations. By 1980 I had grown bored with sea kayaking. The Brits had turned it into a commercial fabrication and assorted pseudo anthropologists had begun writing popularised studies of the boats. Rather than fight the misinformation I shifted my focus to canoes where the industry was still languishing in the dark ages of literature. There is no truth to the rumour that I left the Arctic under a pederastic cloud of suspicion. The only way to study the relationship between Inuit youth and Catholic priests is to observe closely their activities. If I observed too closely it was in the name of science. My contributions to the symbolism in canoe stem shapes received critical acclaim among intelligent paddlers as did my studies of the cocaine traffic between Mayan and Cree tribes of Quebec. In 1991 I returned to the Arctic to follow up on rumours of the great Inuit Crotch Dirigibles and their connection with the discovery of Scotland and the British by the Inuit. I point to the results of that study and how it led to a greater understanding of the Inuit influence on Egyptian culture in the Fifth Dynasty with pride. Currently I am at work studying the Resolute Bay paddling style which is unique among Inuit paddling styles and has been completely ignored by narrow minded paddlers incapable of looking at Inuit culture as a great continuum of development rather than a series of isolated events. Currently I paddle fifteen or so Inuit reproductions made from both seal skin and the skins of humans sacrificed to the great God Sargon. I can do three hundred and fifteen different rolls and seven variations of the paddle float rescue. I never use any electronic gear, life jackets or other such wimpy equipment designed for unskilled North American casual paddlers. I find the standard of paddling to be absurdly low among BCU and ACA instructors who spend more time capsizing than paddling although I confess that they can roll nicely Respectfully, Dr. Peregrine Inverbon, Ph.d., DD, LL.d, Ph.G Transcribed by his humble servant John Winters *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ *************************************************************************** *************************************************************************** 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 Sat Feb 13 1999 - 19:04:00 PST
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