Canoes: A Natural History in North America

The manufacture of synthetic canoes enjoyed a boost from the increase in interest in human-powered outdoor recreation in the 1960s and 1970s, activities that also included bicycling and cross-country skiing.

Mike Cichanowski, founder and owner of Wenonah Canoes, by the early 21st century the leading manufacturer of Kevlar canoes in North America.

Canoe racing, with both professionals and Sunday cruisers competing, remains a popular form of outdoor adventure.

Wenonah continually experimented with new models, including this solo canoe called the Vagabond, seen on the shore of Abel Lake in Virginia. Solo canoes became popular for wilderness trippers and day paddlers alike.

One of the famous twentieth century marathon canoe racers and designers was Eugene (Gene) Jensen, who made a name for himself racing on the Mississippi River.

Carson, shown here with American wildlife artist Bob Hines, worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Hines illustrated Carson’s book Under the Sea Wind.

Frank S. Nicholson, poster for the National Park Service, c. 1936–1940. This poster is from the NYC Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which sponsored artists of almost all stripes during the Great Depression. Nicholson was among almost ten thousand artists who were supported by the WPA’s Federal Art Project.

The Nahanni River in Canada became famous—and a popular destination for whitewater canoe adventurers—after the 1950s publication of the book The Dangerous River by R. M. Patterson, a hair-raising account of a trip into the wilderness region earlier in the century.

Evidence of travel by canoe exists in the form of pictographs hundreds of years old in the Quetico region of Canada. Scientists are not in agreement about who made the images—or even when—but the painting of people in a boat is unmistakable.

The business of canoe liveries and outfitters in the lakes and rivers region of North America, including Ely, Minnesota, in 1958, allowed city dwellers to experience the joys of wilderness travel without actually owning a canoe.

Winslow Homer, Adirondack Lake (Blue Monday), 1892. Watercolor on white wove paper; 30.1 × 53.5 cm (11 7/8 × 21 1/16 in).

Canoes and kayaks line the shore at Everglades National Park. The park’s Nine Mile Pond Canoe Trail has long been a popular route for paddlers.

Howard Zahniser was a significant figure in the American environmental movement in the 1950s and 1960s. His work on the Wilderness Act of 1964—he is credited with writing most of it—was instrumental in its final passage.

President Lyndon Johnson signs the Wilderness Act on September 3, 1964.

Biologist Aldo Leopold (center) accompanies his son Starker (left) on a canoe trip in the Quetico boundary waters in 1924.

Sigurd Olson, a biologist by training and a canoe outfitter in Ely, Minnesota, was among the important writers and political activists in the environmental movement.

Groups interested in preserving canoe country from development sprang up all over the continent. Canoes were often used as images of a free and quiet outdoors experience, including this poster with artwork by Francis Lee Jaques, ca. 1949.

The National Wild and Scenic River system, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, is an attempt to protect U.S. rivers in their natural state from development as much as possible. More than 12,500 miles of rivers have such protection.

The 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, seen from above the critical platform, was at the time the worst spill in American history, later surpassed by the Exxon Valdez (1989) and Deepwater Horizon (2010) spills.

A dramatic event that drew more interest to environmental issues was the oil spill off of Santa Barbara, California, in 1969.