I went looking for a boat, and was given a greater gift.
If you love the water as I do, you might enjoy building, buying, and selling boats as I do. It is not just about finding the perfect vessel, however. When buying a new boat, I have come to place great value on the chance to get to know other members of my tribe, people who love to paddle.
I use the words “new boat” to indicate new to me, as there is no way that a boat just-off-the-showroom will pass financial muster in my household. This brings me, and many of you, to Craigslist, the Boundary Waters Gear Forum, or other well-worn places to fish for a new boat. And, like fishing, whether you are lucky enough to land a bargain or see a big one get away, there are tales to tell.
To be honest, being up against a horde of buyers for a canoe makes me at least a little crazy. Just after 5:00 on a Tuesday work night, a seller of a glorious Boundary Waters cruiser--a Minnesota II--told me he was leaning toward selling his boat to someone he knew personally. Considering my losing set of cards, I decided to go for broke. “Sir,” I said, “if I jump in my car immediately and drive across the state [Wisconsin] to your door, will you sell me the boat?” He wasn’t sure of the other guy’s intentions, but was quite clear about mine. He said yes.
Another time I came close to a deal that would have kept me in boats for the rest of my life. Let me explain: I found a real beauty, a Tuff Weave Wenonah Solitude, that had been languishing on the electronic classifieds. When I arrived at Ryan’s driveway, I learned that he loved the design but not the weight. He had already located the lighter Kevlar model in New York and paid handsomely to have it shipped to Wisconsin.
After we loaded his old Tuff Weave boat on my car, he seemed to reconsider the check in his hand. He sighed and requested that if I ever were to sell the boat, would I please tell him first. A year later I received an unexpected message. Ryan felt blown around while fishing in his lightweight Kevlar Solitude. Would I sell the Tuff Weave boat back to him? In the interim, I had portaged the heavy Tuff Weave around the Boundary Waters at the expense of my aging back.
We lit on a life plan. Ryan is about ten years younger and stronger than me. We would swap boats at a fair price, and when my portaging days came to an end, say ten years from now, I would sell him back his lighter Kevlar for the same price. It would then, in turn, save his back.
It sounded like a perfect plan, but before we could seal the deal Ryan started to send me alluring messages of other Kevlar boats that I could buy. I came to realize that he still wanted the Tuff Weave, but was getting cold feet about giving up the Kevlar boat. It didn’t seem right for me to hold onto his much-loved older boat any longer and, truth be told, it was killing my back.
To my delight, soon after I returned the Solstice to Ryan I saw a listing for a light-weight Bell Magic. Like my experience with Ryan, however, interacting with this new seller would prove to be more than just a transaction.
After having initially agreed to my offer, Roger, the seller, seemed to reconsider. He mentioned temporarily "holding off" other buyers. He sent emails openly “educating” me about the particulars of owning a Kevlar boat. Then he started to make demands. He wouldn't let me test the canoe before buying it, insisting that I find another way to test paddle the Magic and a Wenonah Prism (he felt it was an important contrast to the Magic), all within a tight timeline.
Seeking a little information myself, I asked him why he was selling the boat. His answer, lacking explanation, took me aback: "I am selling this boat and others because my wife and I agree I should not paddle anymore." That hard statement hung in my mind a few days later when I showed up at his door, having done what he asked.
Roger acknowledged straight away that he had been testing me and the other buyers. He needed to feel convinced there was a good match between the boat and the new owner and he had turned away higher bidders who didn’t meet that bar. Why was he going to such lengths? He noted "you bond with your boats. They take you through happy hours. They can be relied upon when the water gets rough. They are not just boats, they are part of who we are."
Roger, I came to learn, is an unsung hero. He worked for 48 years as a water chemist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the federal government. If fish were dying, Roger led research projects to understand what pollutants were affecting their aquatic ecosystem and figured out how to save them.
Roger is also inexorably linked to the place that has given him the greatest joy in his life, the Boundary Waters. He and his wife, Jane, have spent 30 years making pilgrimages there, guiding their family and a great many newcomers.
As he is clearly a teacher, I asked him to share some of the wisdom he had tried to pass down to others in his years of paddling. "We took time to learn the names of things, the trees, the fauna, and we shared that information," he said. He studied the loads people would carry and sought to ensure that portage demands matched the ability level of the group. The gear carried by the newcomer was every bit the equal to that of the veteran. He advised throwing out your water filter after every trip. Giardia, he noted, is "so much un - fun." Roger made it his goal to prepare so carefully that his trips were remarkable for being unremarkable.
When his canoe had been transferred to me, he paused and told me a story that left a grateful tear in my eye. On his last trip to the Boundary Waters, he and Jane were enjoying an evening campfire, when he had a feeling something was behind him. He turned to see a fox almost close enough to touch.
"I didn't know it then, but I think the fox knew I had cancer. He knew it was my last trip. He stood behind me, just looking at me for a time with those big beautiful brown eyes fixed on mine, and then moved slowly into the forest. He showed no sign of fright or aggression. It was one of the most intimate experiences of my life. I think the fox was nature. Nature was saying goodbye to me."
I have learned that the process of buying a boat from a prior owner is like rowing itself. It is not the fastest way to get from A to B. What you gain in the slow person-to-person process is the understanding that the boat is not just property, it is a conveyor of warm memories and hopes for future adventures. It is being transferred to you, a gift. Most importantly, it is also a gift to get to know your people, boat people.