The Canoe, Its History, Uses, Limitations and Varieties, Practical Management and Care and Relative Facts
by C. Bowyer Vaux
Vaux was the first to really exhaustively cover the handling of canoes in the early years of 1885; although other such as MacGregor and Bishop had popularized the canoe as a means of travel, there was precious little information about how to go about it or how to manage it once you got afloat. As Vaux states in his little preface; "In the little book before you I have tried to state what I would have been glad eight years ago, when canoeing was new to me, to have had some one take the trouple to tell me. The best source of information is practical experience. The experiences of others, however, are useful, even if they but verify the conclusions arrived at from your own. . . . You cannot learn to sail or paddly be reading. The utmost I can hope for is that what I have here told you will be of some help to you, and in a measure lighten the trouble you will have to bear in learning to handle your craft the first season; yes, and the second, too, perhaps. That you will get some help from what I have here written and profit by it is the wish of . . . THE AUTHOR.". The words Vaux wrote in 1885 are still true today and this book can go far to putting the beginning canoest on the right slant.
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