Tin Canoes: I have been canoeing for a long time now…over sixty years: When we were primary school age we used to make tin canoes out of a sheet of corrugated iron, usually tacked to a plank front and stern, tar-sealed, the side edges folded and hammered flat so we didn’t cut ourselves to pieces. Paddles made from a straight tree branch with a couple of pieces of flat plank nailed on. We had to wait till the creek was running a ‘banker’ before we could try it out.
It is a wonder really we are still alive (well, most of us). It was a different childhood to the cosseted suburban video-game ‘heaven’ most youngsters ‘endure’ today. Thank goodness our own children got to spend a lot of their childhood in the forest, on our wild rivers, growing up on a farm & etc.
