Canoe recommendations ?

I have an Old Town Tripper. Made from Royalex. About 80 lbs, 17' long and 39" wide. It's a great all-around canoe. They are no longer made from Royalex since that material is no longer available. Now polyethylene is used. The Royalex ones are lighter and stronger if you can find a used one. A Myers Sports Pal is a good choice for something smaller and lighter. The Raddison Sports Pals are thinner.
 
Some canoes are coming up on Craigslist and facebook now, and there are some good deals. Don't be afraid of a canoe with damage to the cane seats or to other wood parts. Ed's Canoe parts in northern VT sells and ships all kinds of components, and it's not hard to replace them.
 
We have a Grumman with a shallow keel and an older Old Town without. The Grumman was a bit of a PITA in rivers, as is the Old town in a big pond or lake.

Oh, man. I still have nightmares from humping one of those Grummans on portages in Boundary Waters. Too effing heavy.

My brother and I did the Boundary Waters trip. I made the call to upgrade the rental to a kevlar canoe, which ended up being the right call as my brother had bad knees plus wasn't in the same shape as me. Guess who carried the heaviest pack AND the canoe. [laugh]

Got a little payback. There's a remote border crossing portage manned by a lone Canadian border agent who lives there seasonally. I took our papers in while my brother elected to wait outside. The border agent offered me beers and said my brother could do without since he wasn't carrying much. 4 beers later...

You did the boundary waters? Holy crap that's a bucket list trip for me.

IIRC I was in my late 30's? Great trip- you definitely want to see the indian paintings and waterfalls. We carried too much food as we caught and ate a lot of fish. Probably could have stayed a month with what we had. Thumbs up to do that someday- doesn't have to be a super expensive trip.
 
We didn’t catch any fish until we were 5 days in. Then we started catching pike that we’re 30”+ long. Pike steaks for dinner were awesome.
 
We didn’t catch any fish until we were 5 days in. Then we started catching pike that we’re 30”+ long. Pike steaks for dinner were awesome.
I lost a huge pike due to a light leader that was finally cut by its teeth. We started catching smallmouth and walleye on day two. I made fried filets rolled in cracker crumbs, salt, and pepper. I had lemon juice packs if we wanted to use some.

I should add that we were hauled in as far as power boats were allowed.
 
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