The Barrel Canoe
By Pat McManus
March 2011
After shuddering once again at this picture of the barrel canoe I helped navigate down the Palouse River — there were three of us in the craft — the details of that particular outing leap to mind. The third party, Will, who happened to be sitting on the crossbar of the canoe at the time of the accident, presumably so he wouldn’t get his rear end damp by sitting in the bottom, may have contributed to the capsize. ​
Fortunately for me, we had thoughtfully brought along an inflated inner tube as a floatation device, even though none of us could foresee a case in which it might be needed. I was seated in the stern of the “canoe” with my neighbor friend at the box. This arrangement turned out to be unfortunate in my case. When the bow hit the bridge piling and ducked beneath the surface, my neighbor and Will both leaped with lightning speed to the rocky embankment that supported the end of the bridge. By the time my end of the canoe reached the embankment, the craft had disappeared entirely beneath the surface. I floated away clinging to the inner tube.
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The banks on both sides of the river were lined with thick, high brush, and I floated peacefully along until I found a clear patch on the bank and was able to scramble up into a farmer’s field.
The canoe on top of the second car in the photo was not foolproof when it came to floating rivers either. I recall one time when we swamped it in a rapid on the St. Joe River in Idaho.
We each had a girlfriend along on that trip. After the canoe went under, the girls floated on down through the rapid in their life jackets, picking up assorted items that had been thrown from the canoe. Neither panicked nor, as I recall, even complained about the incident. So we married them.