Swimming+EB

Evan Bower

"Swimming with Canoes"

In John McPhee’s //Swimming with Canoes,// he reflects on the summers he spent as a child as Keewaydin Summer Camp. In looking back, he remembers that each day he seemed to be perpetually surrounded by a canoe, joking that they were, “like some sort of crustaceans with our rib and planking exoskeletons.” He follows that with the statement that is the tune to which the rest of his article plays, as he says, “to this day I do not feel complete or safe unless I am surrounded by the protective shape of a canoe.”

This is because the canoes were used mostly as the toy for the creation of childhood games. During swim session, the kids would swim canoes out to “jounce” them in deeper water. McPhee describes jouncing as the art of propelling a canoe with a paddle. The kids would do this by standing on top of the canoes, and shimmying them with their legs to move forward, until they inevitably fell laughing into the water.

When that got boring, the kids would simply sit in the canoes, and rock back and forth while holding on to the sides, until the canoe went upside down and they would spill over the sides. McPhee goes on to beautifully describe how when the canoe was overturned, the kids would swim underneath to find the air pocket. He says, “and then your eyes, nose, mouth were in air, among chain link streaks of white and amber light, the shimmers of reflection in a Quonset grotto.” Along with opening with the effect canoeing had on him, McPhee in this sentence gives us the source of his love affair. His description of life under the canoe communicates the beauty which drew him in, and is capped off when he says, “You were invisible to the upside, outside world.”

All of this leads to the story of McPhee canoeing with a friend years later as a twelve year old. While in the rapids, McPhee flips and is trapped under the canoe as he heel is stuck in the stern of the canoe. This is the culmination of everything McPhee has told you about his camp life thus far. He writes, “I have a lifelong tendency to panic. Almost anything will panic me- health, money, working with words. Almost anything- I’m here to tell you- but an overturned canoe in a raging gorge.” Here McPhee shows his point that tipping the canoes was not pointless childhood fun, but slowly conditioned him to deal with an overturned canoe when it happens against his will. The story ends with this, as he raises himself to the air pocket in the canoe, and stays there until the canoe reaches calmer waters.

While the story is about canoes, it seems that McPhee is musing about this because it was the time in his life when he felt most free. By pointing out that they spent swim period tipping over continues, he is showing that any structure in his summer days was merely illusory. The result of that freedom is that McPhee was allowed the opportunity to become so adept with canoes that he had no need to worry while in one, as controlling one required skills he had long ago acquired. This goes directly against the things he mentions as worrisome in his life, health, money and writing, as those are not taught naturally but through a rigorous and structured educational system.

All of this seems to speak not only about human education, but about the virtue in what is natural. //In Virgin Forest// maintains that while virgin woodland may not be aesthetically pleasing, its self-sustainability is a treasure more important than any that can be caught by the human eye. The same seems to be true for a human being. While a human taught only by what nature chooses to show him may not look like our ideal man, he will be able to exist without the myriad contractual systems a man must go through and exit to be “well-ordered.” What becomes increasingly admirable about McPhee when reading more of his writing is that he continually expresses universal ideas while merely discussing his interests which he would be aware to be very particular to him. He never points you to where he wants you to go, but tells you a little story and you're there.