‘Canoe’ cruise with us in Sweden?

July 13, 2007
| 22 Comments

I’ve loved boating since I was a boy and have made my own canoes, a kayak and even a small sailing boat (I made sails out of old bed sheets on my moms new Singer sewing machine!). Living close to the Norwegian coast line (a very long one you know), I’ve always felt water like a magnet – one of the four elements that has to be challenged and controlled. It stays in the blood from our forefathers, the Vikings I guess:-)
Therefore, I was thrilled when Tor and Anna brought their canoe when visiting us in our vacation home. In my post two days ago, you saw our first day together and on Tor’s blog you saw our adventures yesterday. Today we finely have summer weather (it has been kind of a green winter the last weeks:-( and time for The Dynamic Duo our wifes and my bonus children to paddle on Vänern, Scandinavia’s largest lake at our vacation town, Mariestad. When posting about food, I always say sit in, and this time I could use the same phrase:





Then it was the boys turn (the young once then LoL), paddling around for an hour:




Saftey first of course, so since we only had two life vests, we took only two at a time. Next out was the The Dynamic Duo:




The surroundings are just beautiful throughout our significant four seasons and we’ve frequented these environment the last seven years. Here you see my post from last year showing the beach from winter to summer. Today, as I said, we had a taste of real warm summer and next one out was Anna and Diane:








My regular readers knows I like to share knowledge, so let me ad some canoe history:
Petroglyph (rock carvings) in Norway and Sweden from 1000 – 400 BC shows lodge boats or canoes as the first type of Viking ships (read my post about them!). Birch-bark canoe: in the temperate regions of eastern North America, canoes were traditionally made of a wooden frame covered with bark of a birch tree, pitched to make it waterproof. Traditional voyageur canoes were similar to birch-bark canoes but larger and purpose built for the fur trade business, capable of carrying 12 to 20 passengers and 3000 lbs of cargo. Wood-and-canvas canoe – evolved from the birchbark canoe in the late 19th century when canvas became much easier to acquire than the bark of the white birch tree. Our canoe is made in Norway of polyethylene (a unique mold technique), so you might say it has been a development.

Btw: Tor and Anna is staying until Sunday, so stay tuned!

Habits, Summer, Travel Abroad