Jimmy Good Toad's Canoeing and Boating page

	Welcome to my canoeing page! I have been canoeing for many years now. In 1993 I received my Bachelors Degree from the University of New Hampsire. As a graduation gift, my family each chiped in a little money so that I could buy the canoe that i've talked about for years. With this money, I purchased a used SportsPal
canoe and I've never looked back. Over the years I've put hundreds, if not thousand of miles on that canoe. At times, going out on a local lake or river 4-6 times a week, even if only to listen to the loon or watch a dense fog dissipate with the sunrise. New Hampshire is a fantastic place in which to canoe. The uncountable hidden lakes, some reachable only by portage with canoe, and the miles and miles of crystal clear rivers and streams. I recall a dream I had when first settling into New Hampshire... ...I was going to fish every body of water in this small state. "Naivete", thy name is Jim Flis... You see, I came across a little New Hampshire factoid shortly after I set that dream into motion. The earth is approximately 24,000 miles around, at the equator. The small New England state of New Hampshire has 125,000 miles of rivers and streams; enough to go around the whole planet 5 times! I guess, in my next life, I had better come back as a cat so that I have the 9 lives I'm going to need to fullfil this dream.
This page will highlight some of the fun and adventure that I've had with my sportpal. Yep, I still have my first, and only, canoe, although I hope to purchase a lighter canoe for easier portage. The picture to the right shows my first attempt at canoeing with Jim Meyer (that's me eating the football). I guess I didn't really know what a canoe looked like, and I sure didn't know that the water was supposed to be on the outside. To begin this section of my website, I invite the reader to explore my efforts at building my very first canoe.
A most unusual canoe too. You see, the town of Merrimack, NH, has an annual Cardboard Boat race to raise money for a much needed library (See the Merrimack link under my Log of Contemplation, below). This year I've decided to design and build a cardboard canoe and a photo essay of this effort can be found below. NEW! I've now uploaded the photo essays from the 2001 Merrimack Library Boat Festival (See below). Here you will see all the fun and excitement that this day brings to the sleepy town of Merrimack. Also, you can see the efforts that went into two more cardboard boat creations as I detail the steps that went into constructing the Merrimack Belle (a 14 foot side-wheel paddle wheel boat) and the DreadNot (a 12 foot acoustic guitar shaped boat), both made of corugated cardboard. My 2002 Cardboard Boat, the Independence! The 2001 Merrimack Library Cardboard Boat Festival! The 2000 Merrimack Library Cardboard Boat Festival! Jim's Cardboard Canoe Effort 1999 Photo's from Race Day, 1999! Merrimack Public Library Cardboard Boat Festival page.