Expedition Canoeing, Cliff Jacobson (2000)
By Cliff Jacobson
Folding Canoes
Joel and Bev Hollis reported on their 1998 experiences with a PakCanoe on the Kuujjua River in a letter to Alv Elvestad, the chief executive officer of ScanSport:
“In retrospect we wish we had our folding PakCanoe rather than our Old Town Tripper, especially since we had such long portages. The Tripper weighs about 95 pounds outfitted, the PakCanoe weighs about 50 pounds. Also, the first week of the trip we had low water, and had to drag our boat. Of all the boats on the river, the PakCanoe performed the best. The inflatable canoe developed leaks in the bottom and floated very low because of the heavy load of gear. The Tripper did okay, but most of the vinyl outer layer wore off, and the Kevlar bang plates were badly ground down. The PakCanoe developed some minor abrasion on the keel strip, but it was easily patched. Also, the PakCanoe seemed to float higher than the other boats, which made it easier to drag.”
I first saw folding canoes in action in 1992, on the Hood River in Canada’s Northwest Territories. I was portaging my Royalex canoe around a particularly dicey Class III drop (see appendix E) when I observed three forest green Ally folding canoes heading into the rapids. I just shook my head and said “no way!”
Seconds later a canoe impaled upon a rock and began to fold around it. Suddenly, the hull broke loose and the craft slithered on, bouncing off and twisting around rocks in its path. A second canoe easily negotiated a 3-foot ledge I would have lined. It bent nearly in half as the bow climbed out of the wave trough!
The crew, which was from Norway, put in below the rapid, and we shared some tea and smiles. I learned that they had canoed several Arctic rivers, though this was their first with folding canoes. Our crews continued to play tag downriver for two more days, and I watched the Norwegians run other rapids we chose to line or portage around. I vowed that I would never again thumb my nose at folding canoes.
When I got home I called the manufacturer and asked for information. I learned that many significant canoe trips have been made in folding canoes.
ScanSport is the only manufacturer of folding canoes in North America. It began making boats in 1995. At first its canoes were sold exclusively by Mad River as the Escape Series; then in 1998 the company began its own distribution under the name Pakboats/PakCanoes.
PakCanoes range in size from 14 to 17 feet and weigh thirty-eight to fifty-three pounds. The 16-footers we saw on the Hood weighed 48 pounds and had an advertised capacity of 760 pounds. Seventeen-footers weigh just 2 pounds more and will carry 910 pounds. Overall, the design is a significant improvements over the Ally folding canoes that are built in Norway. The hulls are formed by a reinforced PVC skin held under tension by an interlocking framework of tubular aluminum. The ΒΌ inch of foam is laminated to the inside bottom for extra strength. Assembly takes about thirty minutes. The seats are adjustable for sitting and kneeling, and rocker can be tuned to suit different paddling conditions. The disassembled canoe stores in a 35- by 17- by 13-inch bag. Prices are similar to what you would pay for a Kevlar canoe.
