In the Summer of the 2019, I was blessed with the chance to canoe down one of Sweden’s rivers. Although I may have mentioned it, before, I was looking through the images and noted this particular one. When I see these kinds of crafts, it leads me down a route of understanding. I like to think about the strengths of the people that spent the time to carve out or attach parts. The canoe in the image was on the side of the river route, an area that we needed to carry our canoes due to a large dam that had been built across, also allowing for the cars to travel over it.
Closer inspections showed that it had clearly been hand carved. Imagine the time that is spent scraping away the wood, bit-by-bit. these kind of tasks are seldome seen, now, but are still around if you look hard enough. If you head to Ironbridge in Shropshire, there are still people making coracles the same way as they did in the past. What’s not to love with seeing the hard work and outcomes of these people? Holding on to traditions that could just vanish, one day. Bravo to those people, and to all that save skills that are slowly disappearing, as lon as we have you, they shall never die!
