Highway
Trouble: A Quetico 16 Survival Story
A local Ely-area outfitter called up a friend on June 18, 1999
to deliver a couple of paddlers-to-be to their entry point with
the canoe and gear provided by the outfitter. Al (not his real
name by request) said "Sure," and proceeded to tie the
canoe on top of the outfitter's Suburban.
Al loaded up the gear and proceeded to tie the canoe on top of
the Suburban. It was a Souris River Quetico 16 in Duralite with
only one prior trip on it, so it was pretty new. Al's friend,
the outfitter, uses rope to tie and Al was more used to canoe
straps. When everything was loaded, Al climbed up in the big Subruban
and, with paddlers in their seats, started rolling to their Boundary
Waters destination.
While cruising down the road, chatting with the paddlers, a pop
and whoosh and the sounds of tearing metal came resounding through
the roof of the cab at about 55 MPH. Before he knew what was happening,
it was too late to save it. The rope over the front of the Quetico
16 let loose, and the canoe went airborne in a nanosecond. The
second rope around the rear rack and over the top of the canoe
still held, but it literally caused a huge crease right around
the bottom of the canoe as the Quetico tried to fold to accommodate
the gasoline-induced, gale-force wind. Then in a blink of an eye,
the second canoe rack literally ripped from the gutters of the
Suburban. Now the Quetico 16 was airborne.
The effect of gravity is still here even in canoe country. With
a lot of wince-worthy scratching and grinding sounds, the Quetico
was now skidding along the pavement and slowing down from 50 to
0 MPH on about 200 yards of unforgiving, hot blacktop.
Al stopped as fast as the wheels of the Suburban would allow.
Needless to say he was upset and probably a little pale, too.
Fortunately, no one was hurt, but this canoe wasn't going to continue
the trip today.
Upon inspection of the damage, the Quetico suffered some serious
stress marks in the stern of the canoe but it was not punctured.
This area could use a patch on the outside and the inside of the
stress-marks but neither a patch nor duct tape would have been
necessary to paddle it home in it's present condition. The gunwales
were bent and needed replacing. Scrapes and abrasions were not
real bad except one end-cap took a beating. Overall, this Quetico
16 only looked bad.
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See a Souris River Canoe right here.
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