Words & photos:
Ashley Kenlock &
Richard Harpham FRGS

Richard Harpham bio
Richard has become a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society. 

Richard is a human powered adventurer and inspirational speaker who has completed over 10,000 miles of expeditions by kayak, canoe, bike and on foot including exploring the Yukon, cycling the Sahara and Canada’s Inside Passage.

At home he runs www.canoetrail.co.uk, a watersports and adventure business with his wife Ashley in Bedfordshire providing qualifications, canoe camping, coaching and paddling trips to some of the UK’s and world’s best locations. He is the former editor of Bushcraft and Survival Magazine and writes for Outdoor Adventure Guide, MoD’s Resettlement magazine and the Paddler magazine.

His adventures are supported by: Flint Group, Paramo Clothing, Olympus Cameras, Valley Sea Kayaks, Silverbirch Canoes, Bamboo Clothing, MSR, Canadian Affair, Osprey Rucksacks, Extreme Adventure Foods, Air North, Reed Chillcheater and Exposure Lights. You can follow his adventures through social media & @ www.richadventure.com

Voyager Canoes

There was a time when things were often simple, requiring basic actions and tasks, but the hard truth was that life could also be a constant and daily battle. Before technological advances as we know them today arrived, there was a breed of pioneering men and women who explored and traded their way across the North American continent. Voyageurs was the name of some of these grafters, homesteaders and enterprising types, usually identified by a red toque and sash. Their mode of transport is giant birchbark canoes, also known as Voyager Canoes, the heavy haulage of yesteryear.

Of course, the First Nation and aboriginal tribes and brands had lived and hunted these lands and waters since the dawn of time, living in a nomadic way. Peoples such as the Ojibwe, Mohawk, Dene and other indigenous tribes now became traders, with the new colonisers bringing furs and pelts along with other goods. My first introduction to larger canoes (crew boats) was whilst sea kayaking from Vancouver to Alaska on the infamous Inside Passage meeting Haida Gwaii descendants on the coast. Arriving at Bella Bella close to Prince Rupert, we found traditional war canoes built by the aptly named Ed Carpenter. He proudly shared his heritage that his grandfather had built one of the largest on record, now housed in the American Museum of Natural History, New York. It is a colossal 63ft in length. I was delighted when he identified me as a solid paddler with broad shoulders and little legs, as he put it.

Some years later, in 2016, on the Yukon River Quest, a 444-mile wilderness race, Rob Campbell and I discovered the beauty, grace and speed of Voyager Canoes racing alongside us. Crews competing in the Voyager class ranged from 6-person female Aurora crew to 10-person Ace of Hearts and the UK teams from Worsley Plumbing with 12 a piece. Like the original Voyager crews, maintaining a standard stroke rate in time and unison is critical to efficiently powering these large canoes forward. Watching them cruise alongside us, calling the strokes, switching sides and steering a course was a masterclass in teamwork and skill. There are parallels in technique and style to dragon boat racing, albeit in this instance, over a longer course. From my perspective, I believe Voyager canoes offer some benefits over Dragon Boats as they carry the load, are easily adapted for disability groups and are great for touring and exploring.

The history of the Voyager crews is a fantastic story of mental toughness and grit, paddling these giant canoes along trading routes into the North American interior. Routes such as the Grand Portage involved paddling for 14-16 hours per day, often with a stroke rate of 60 per minute. If that didn’t sound like a suitable workout, imagine this, they carried huge cargo loads with heavy tump sacks of 90lbs. Many would carry 2-3 tump sacks on their head/neck with a head strap, an incredible 180lbs minimum. Visiting the inspirational Peterborough Canoe Museum, there is an activity station where you can try lifting just one tump sack. It is heavy, and carrying it on your head with a strap is painful on your neck muscles, and that’s before you’ve struggled with difficult portages and uneven ground around rapids and waterfalls.

two main classes of travellers

Of course, as a career choice, these traders had worse things to deal with than physical exhaustion and heavy loads; they also risked a harsh and unforgiving wilderness with portages, mosquitos and lack of nutrition. The Voyagers were split into two main classes of travellers, Hiverants (winterers), who were considered a tougher grade of paddler bringing the furs. The second was pork eaters, who brought pork, flour and other goods from Montreal, all part of the 1200-mile journey from Montreal to Lake Superior. You can visit part of the Grand Portage route in the national park that skirts and follows 14km of the Pidgeon River cascades, although the original route had 29 significant portages to carry the cargo of 600lbs. The journey took 7-8 weeks, and often the Voyagers became indentured to the company (Hudson Bay Company or North West Company), having enjoyed rum or tobacco supplies.

The original Voyager canoes were made from birch bark, cedar, or pine thwarts, stitched together with willow, and then waterproofed on the seams with pitch pine. There is, of course, a bitter irony that our development has meant that larger birch bark rolls are no longer available; we have long since harvested them, cutting them down in an unsustainable way. Paddlers were an average of 5ft 6in, allowing more room for the cargo, typically short, squat and powerful men. The crews became famous for passing their time with songs and mimicking bird songs, always trying to maintain the best stroke rate. The teamwork and leadership were maintained by key roles, including the Avant (bowman), Conductor (pilot) and Gouvenail (steersman) with piloting the rivers and lakes to avoid bars and rocks was an essential task.

The paddling technique for Voyagers is similar to that of racing canoes, where the paddle strokes are short and powerful with the analogy of sticking the paddle into the mud or spearing the fish at the catch (the front of the stroke). Canoe racers, also known as ‘diggers’, aim to develop high cadence (Speed of stroke) alongside short, powerful strokes, perhaps a third of the length of a typical canoe stroke. Most of this power is generated from the top hand pushing down as opposed to the bottom hand pulling the paddle back. It takes some time to get used to, and already I can hear my racing teammate Rob Campbell, who has competed in the Devizes to Westminster over ten times, winning the solo race C1 on three occasions shouting at me to shorten my stroke and increase top hand pressure.

The UK has several locations to try out Voyager canoes for yourself. They offer a fantastic team-building activity for corporate activities, school days or race training in crews. The south west in Devon on the Dart has www.bythedart.co.uk and https://canoeadventures.co.uk where you can explore the lower river sections. Our company, Canoe Trail in Bedford, an hour north of London, has a pair of Voyagers which can be booked for larger groups (visit www.canoetrail.co.uk).

We have found them a great fun activity for racing and exploring with the additional benefit of containing inexperienced paddlers in a larger crew craft. We even tried a form of water skiing/wakeboarding towing a SUP behind, very James Bond! We have also found them a great alternative to Dragon Boat racing as a more stable craft reducing the risk of capsizing with corporate groups and even a team training for the Texas Water Safari.

Ian Bowles of Expedition Canoes is the shipwright and boat builder behind the development of Voyagers in the UK. A master craftsman, he builds incredible canoes with stunning wooden decking and tough fibreglass hulls. You can see more at https://expeditioncanoes.co.uk. I genuinely hope we will see a network of centres and tourism businesses adopting Voyager Canoes as a new activity and alternative to Dragon Boat racing, bell boats and other crew craft. Expedition journeys paying homage to our pioneering ancestors would be a fantastic legacy for these historic canoes. Britain has an incredible network of canals and waterways, making this an iconic adventure.

Hopefully, you will feel inspired to try some canoe racing, sit and switch style, or tackle a Voyager journey as a team. I found racing technique also helped improve my white water skills and power strokes for general open boating. Of course, whatever the flavour, it’s just messing about on the water!