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Canuding

27 Jan 2012 06:36 PM | ancient brit in Tales of an Ancient Brit

A Canadian canoe is a wonderful platform for a naturist. You are open to the elements so you can feel sun or breeze on your body. Don’t confuse a canoe with a kayak which is much less stable and in which you are enclosed in the shell of the boat. Canoes are designed for relatively calm rivers and lakes, rather than the sea, as they are difficult to paddle in strong winds and they are only really usable in easy rapids.

My canoe is so stable that, as an experienced canoeist, I don’t need to wear a buoyancy aid unless I’m in white water or rough conditions. This means that in calm conditions, when it is warm enough, I am able to paddle completely naked.

It is possible to use canoes for day trips, but they are ideally designed for longer trips as you can accommodate plenty of camping gear. I also carry a small trolley making it easy when I have to portage the canoe between lakes or round obstacles such as locks, dams or weirs.

In Britain there aren’t a lot of rivers suitable for a long distance canoe tour, the Wye, Severn and Thames possibly being the best. The extensive canal system is usable as long as you don’t mind fairly frequent portages of the locks. The best canal tour in Britain is the Caledonian Canal, taking you through the heart of Scotland from Fort William to Inverness. This canal, with few locks, includes the well-known Loch Ness as you paddle through the magnificent scenery of the Scottish Highlands.

Canudists who want a high chance of warm weather should head south to France, Spain or Portugal. The Dordogne in France is an extremely popular river for canoeists with many companies offering canoe tours for those who don’t own their own canoe. The Tagus reaches the sea near Lisbon and the Portuguese section is free-flowing, except for two dams near the Spanish border. There is relatively little activity on the Tagus and it only passes through a few towns, so in good weather, you can paddle naked throughout its length. It is also possible to paddle on the Tagus in Spain, but here the river is largely dam controlled and you will be paddling on reservoirs.

However the Mecca for canudists is Sweden. Most of my canoe tours have been in Sweden. Here there is open access to all the rivers and lakes, canoes are readily available for hire for day trips or long tours and portages are generally organised so that they can be easily performed using a trolley, rather than having to carry the canoe. Nudity is generally accepted in the wilderness in Sweden, so there is no problem paddling naked, or remaining naked at the small bathing places that you come to on the waterways. In Sweden it is legal to camp on any wilderness land (without asking permission) so you can always find somewhere to camp. Because of the long hours of daylight in summer, if the weather is good you will find the temperature of the lakes can reach 25°C and it is warm enough to be naked for most of the day. Obviously you aren’t guaranteed good weather, but in summer the weather does tend to be more reliable than in Britain. I have certainly done tours where I have been naked for 90% of the time.

Canoeing is much easier for the novice than kayaking, both in terms of required skills and physical demands so you don’t need to be an expert to do a canoe tour. Most of the canoes that you can hire are designed to be paddled by two people. They are often big enough to take two young children as well as their parents, and teenagers should have little problem paddling a canoe, so they are ideal for a family holiday.

Please feel free to contact the author at ancientbritbrian@btinternet.com