Thanks Bill. Great film. This is why I paddle. I have paddled in most of the locations shown.

This film inspires me to get back into canoes after a 25+ love affair with sea kayaks.

I have been given the lines for a classic canoe design, a B. N. Morris canoe, originally built in Veazie, Maine from 1891 to 1919 , the favorite canoe of my friend Norm Sims.

Norm was a whitewater paddling buddy. Thirty years ago Norm showed me this Morris design, which he had built, as a stripper, after I complained about about not having a lightweight canoe for an upcoming wilderness trip.

You can build your own canoe! WHAT a revelation!

And here was a guy, a journalism professor, who I'd never seen build anything more complex than a sandwich, showing me the most beautiful canoe I'd ever seen! I figured if Norm could build one I could too.

This moment changed my life!

Luck? Fate?

That I should be in that place, at that time, with the skills and desire, and to have an amazingly gifted friend show me the path for my life!

Little did I know my friend was an accomplished canoe builder with a lifelong love of canoes, who thought he had to get a real job to pay the bills. He is co-author of the new, must have book, "Canoes: a Natural History in North America".

Norm so loves this Morris canoe he wants me to build it, so more of you can appreciate this nearly lost treasure.

Thanks again Bill for the film link!