Re: [Paddlewise] Loon Song (long Post)

  Recently I was re-reading Nathaniel Bishop's "Voyage of the Paper Canoe" from the 1870s, particularly segments where he passed close to where I live.  He expressed the opinion that paddling is the natural recreational pastime of the minister.  I concur.

"At Baker's Basin the bridge-tender, a one-legged man, pressed me to tarry till he could summon the Methodist minister, who had charged him to notify him of the approach of a paper canoe.

Through all my boat journeys I have remarked that professional men take more interest in canoe journeys than professional oarsmen; and nearly all the canoeists of my acquaintance are ministers of the gospel. It is an innocent way of obtaining relaxation; and opportunities thus offered the weary clergyman of studying nature in her ever-changing but always restful moods, must indeed be grateful after being for months in daily contact with the world, the flesh, and the devil. The tendency of the present age to liberal ideas permits clergymen in large towns and cities to drive fast horses, and spend an hour of each day at a harmless game of billiards, without giving rise to remarks from his own congregation, but let the overworked rector of a country village seek in his friendly canoe that relief which nature offers to the tired brain, let him go into the wilderness and live close to his Creator by studying his works, and a whole community vex him on his return with "the appeara!
 nce of the thing." These self-constituted critics, who are generally ignorant of the laws which God has made to secure health and give contentment to his creatures, would poison the sick man's body with drugs and nostrums when he might have the delightful and generally successful services of Dr. Camp Cure without the after dose of a bill. These hardworked and miserably paid country clergymen, who are rarely, nowadays, treated as the head of the congregation or the shepherd of the flock they are supposed to lead, but rather as victims of the whims of influential members of the church, tell me that to own a canoe is indeed a cross, and that if they spend a vacation in the grand old forests of the Adirondacks, the brethren are sorely exercised over the time wasted in such unusual and unministerial conduct."

Joe P.

-----Original Message-----
>From: Bob Carter <revkayak_at_aptalaska.net>
>Sent: Jun 25, 2009 1:29 AM
>To: paddlewise <paddlewise_at_paddlewise.net>
>Subject: [Paddlewise] Loon Song (long Post)
***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed
here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire
responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author.
Submissions:     PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net
Subscriptions:   PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net
Website:         http://www.paddlewise.net/
***************************************************************************