On day two of a recent solo trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, a south wind was funneling down Wanihigan Lake, a narrow north-south. The tops of the pines whipped back and forth in the wind. The low water from months without rain made entering my canoe at the normal put-in spot after the portage impossible.
I balanced my Northstar Magic on the shoulders and stepped over a blowdown that reached up to my crouch. The wind caught the canoe and twisted it, but I managed to return it into the wind. The only way to launch was to set my canoe next to a floating log that must have been two feet in diameter. Then step in the canoe and somehow get my other foot to follow without capsizing.
All went well until I heard a crunch and then my seat collapsed under me as my second foot came into the canoe. Luckily, day two was my last day. It was just a quick overnight trip. I downside was I had a little over 4.5 miles of paddling and portaging left to get to the takeout.
As I paddled down Wanihigan, I pondered if I wanted to do a field repair or just try to make it out. I picked up a freshly de-barked stick that a beaver had gone to work on. My plan was to tie it under the seat to scab over the break. By the end of the lake, I abandoned the idea because it seemed like the rear beam on the seat was going to hold.
The seat I had was webbing instead of cane, and I think the webbing helped to maintain the seats structure even after the break. With cane, I have no doubt that I’d have needed to complete a repair in the field.
After I removed the broken seat from the canoe, I examined the break. The break was under a piece of webbing that was stapled on with over twice as many staples as the rest of the webbing. I wonder if all the extra staples lead to the break. It broke right where several were stapled one on top of the other.
So, that brings me to today. I was shopping for a new canoe seat from Edscanoe. That’s where I used to buy all my canoe seats from when I was building canoes. I really liked the seats that I’ve gotten from them in the past. I’m not sure how I didn’t notice it before, but they have a canoe seat designed for the center of tandem canoes that has a yoke built into it.
This is cool! I think with a DIY yoke pad made out of closed cell foam could make this work for portaging my solo canoe. I’ve tried a lot of options in the past, including making my own portage yoke (see: Solo Canoe Portage Yoke) that went over standard flat seats, but I haven’t found anything that’s super simple. A seat with a yoke built into it would be simple. Foam pad that went over the seat would be simple. I just don’t know how comfortable it would be to paddle with this yoke/seat or if it would work. At $62.50, it’s not a cheap experiment either.
Have any of you tried this seat before? Or have any thoughts about it? I’m tempted to try it, but I’m also sold on webbing for seats now instead of cane. That contoured seat was really comfortable, so maybe I should just get one of those again.
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