A perfect dive
Water wings and other artificial supports are very useful for the beginner until he has mastered the strokes, but all such artificial devices should be given up just as soon as possible, and, furthermore, as soon as we can really swim, in order to gain confidence, we should go beyond our depth, where it will be necessary to swim or drown.
A swimmer should always know how to assist another to shore in case of accident. It is not nearly so easy as one who has never tried it might think. A drowning person will for the time being be panic-stricken and the first impulse will be to seize us about the neck. Always approach a drowning person from the rear and support him under an armpit, meanwhile talking to him and trying to reassure him. Every year we hear of terrible drowning accidents which might have been avoided if some one in the party had kept his head and had been able to tell the others what to do.
I have placed canoeing and swimming in the same chapter because the first word in canoeing is never go until you can swim. There is practically no difference between the shape of the modern canoe and the shape of the Indian birch bark canoes which were developed by the savages in America hundreds of years ago. All the ingenuity of white men has failed to improve on this model. A canoe is one of the most graceful of water craft and, while it is regarded more in the light of a plaything by people in cities, it is just as much a necessity to the guides and trappers of the great Northern country as a pony is to the cowboy and the plainsman. The canoe is the horse and wagon of the Maine woodsman and in it he carries his provisions and his family.
A typical Indian model canoe
While a canoe is generally propelled by paddles, a pole is sometimes necessary to force it upstream, especially in swift water. In many places the sportsman is forced to carry his canoe around waterfalls and shallows for several miles. For this reason a canoe must be as light as possible without too great a sacrifice of strength. The old styles of canoes made of birch bark, hollow logs, the skins of animals and so on have practically given way to the canvas-covered cedar or basswood canoes of the Canadian type.
A sailing canoe in action
It will scarcely pay the boy to attempt to make his own canoe, as the cost of a well-made eighteen-foot canoe of the type used by professional hunters and trappers is but thirty dollars. With care a canoe should last its owner ten years. It will be necessary to protect it from the weather when not in use and frequently give it a coat of paint or spar varnish.