Starting Out
Vade Mecum—A Paddler's Booklist
By
Tamia Nelson
Vade mecum. My Latin's getting a little rusty, but I still
remember what it means: "Go with me." And you can't find a better name
for any portable reference book. Something to study at home and then
take along with you, to consult as needed.
OK. This is the Internet, right? So who needs books? Can't I find
everything I need to know right here?
Well, maybe. I'd be the last person to disparage the medium that
puts food on my table. Still, you can't get too much information, can
you? And as useful as the Internet is, books have their place, too. You
probably won't want to take your computer with you into your boat, for
one thing. After all, even the best batteries go dead sooner or later,
and it's hard finding a current bush with just the right voltage.
Printouts? Sure. But you'll have to bind them or corral them in a
file folder. If you don't, wind and water will disperse your take-along
library to all the points of the compass. Either way, it's a lot of
trouble. Call me old-fashioned, if you will, but I like books. Books
can go anywhere—and survive just about anything. I've got books
that have come through fire and flood. They're a little careworn, to be
sure, but they're all still readable.
With this in mind, here's a short list of the books I've found most
helpful in twenty-five years as a canoeist and kayaker. Many of the
titles are out-of-print now, but good books like these don't have a
fixed shelf-life. They're all useful, and all of them should be easy to
find in a local second-hand book store, or at one of the many on-line
booksellers.
Primus inter pares. Latin again. "First among equals." And
that's Bill Mason's Path of the Paddle (Van Nostrand, 1980).
There are many good canoeing books, but this one stands out. I have a
first edition, and it's a superb text-book. It's well organized,
clearly written, and wonderfully illustrated. And it's not just for
canoeists. It does a first-rate job of describing the dynamics of
moving water, so it's equally valuable for kayakers. I just wish I'd
had a copy when I was studying hydrology!
And, speaking of kayaking, I learned to kayak the hard way—with
a paddle in one hand and a book in the other. The book was the White
Water Handbook, 2d edition, by John T. Urban and T. Walley
Williams. It was published by the Appalachian Mountain Club way back in
1981, but despite its age and the poorly-executed illustrations, I've
found no better primer. It's useful for canoeists, too. (NB The AMC
recently brought out an updated edition. It has a slightly different
title—Whitewater Handbook—and a different author.)
Once you've learned to paddle, you'll probably want to go somewhere.
Extended voyages by sea kayak require more than water-reading ability
and good boat-control. John Dowd's Sea Kayaking: a Manual for
Long-Distance Touring (University of Washington, 1988) is an
excellent introduction to the art. It's also the one book I'd recommend
for boaters who think they might be interested in folding kayaks.
Even in the GPS era, you can't get where you want to go without
knowing something about navigation. Dowd prefaces his chapter on this
subject by referring readers to David Burch's Fundamentals of Kayak
Navigation (Globe Pequot, 1993). It's a good call. If you're a
stranger to nautical charts and tide tables, or if references to
"compass deviation" and "dead reckoning" leave you scratching your
head, then this is the book for you.
Going somewhere by canoe or kayak often means camping out, of
course. I learned to live "under canvas" by trial and error. If I'd had
Robert Douglas Meade's The Canoer's Bible (Doubleday, 1976), I'd
have had a much easier time of it. Skip over the discussion of canoes,
paddles, and canoe handling—Mason does a much better job with
these. Go right to the chapters on gear. You can't do better. The
possibility of finding a copy of this long out-of-print volume is one
of the many things that makes visiting second-hand bookstores
worthwhile.
Lastly, I'd recommend Heather Angel's The Water Naturalist
(Facts On File, 1982) to any paddler with an interest in the
environment through which she voyages. Although most of the examples
are drawn from the UK, I've found no other book which does as good a
job of taking curious readers from "Still Waters" to "The Open Sea."
It's no substitute for a local field guide, but it's an eye-opening
read nonetheless.
That's it. Books to read at home. Books to take along. And until I
add a few titles of my own to the list, they're all I need on my
paddler's bookshelf. 'Nuff said.
Copyright © 2001 by Verloren Hoop Productions. All
rights reserved.