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| Bud Hassett and a couple of his very close friends. (Photo By Linda Galok) |
— “Pooh's Little Instruction Book,” inspired by A. A. Milne
Tim Gray and Francis (Bud) Hassett frequently have both oars in the water.
Gray has been canoeing since attending a camp as a young lad in the Adirondacks, where he won a Boy Scout merit badge for it, in spite of having to jump in the lake at 6:30 every morning to get started.
Hassett has been canoeing since he and a friend bought an old beat-up Grummond aluminum canoe, when he was just out of high school.
Gray works three or four jobs (depending on the season) and lives in Lee. Hassett is semi-retired and lives in Dalton.
Gray has a passion for the playing the hammer dulcimer, tending the plants and flowers at his family’s Golden Hill Nursery and parting PCBs from the Housatonic River. Hassett favors frog legs, fiddlehead ferns and family adventures.
While Gray races canoes sometimes, his most important win, he said, has been as the Housatonic “riverkeeper,” seeing progress being made on the river clean-up project when he takes his canoe out for a ride.
Hassett has raced canoes for years, including a couple of white-water races. He won a time or two, but he said the most important thing about canoeing is challenging his own abilities while enjoying the ride.
Gray canoes almost exclusively in the October Mountain State Forest and fish and wildlife management area of the Housatonic, but he will take his collection of canoes to give tours anywhere on the Housatonic, from New York to Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Hassett has canoed on the ocean off the coast of Alaska, the lakes of Maine and New Hampshire, the swamps of Florida, the ponds in the Berkshire hill towns and many of the rivers of the Northeast, including the St. John, the Deerfield — and, of course, the Housatonic.
Gray said staying dry can be a realistic option when one canoes. He said the most impressive canoeing moment he saw was the day John Lortie, a biologist with Woodlot Associates, reached over the side of his canoe and pulled a 36-inch snapping turtle from the river without falling out. But almost as impressive, he said, was U.S. Sen. John Kerry’s guided canoe tour about 10 years ago. Gray said Kerry was a pretty able canoeist for a politician — in other words, he moved forward rather than going in circles, as many beginner canoeists (and politicians) are prone to do.
Hassett said wet feet are to canoeing what webbed feet are to ducks, but if one doesn’t try to stand up too much and stays away from places with a lot of “blowdown (fallen tree limbs) and drops, one can stay drier than he usually does. “There are only about 10 things to understand and master to successfully paddle a canoe, but without knowing those things, you don’t make a lot of forward progress,” Gray said.
Hassett had some words of wisdom for beginning canoeists too”
“Use a kayak,” he said with a laugh, “They’re lighter to carry and easier to maneuver if you’re going to learn by yourself.”
In all seriousness, he said, the Housatonic isn’t the best place for beginners to learn, but some rules will help:
1.} Always wear a life jacket.
2.} Learning to canoe in the summer is best since the water in the Housatonic is warmer, lower and slower.
3.} When canoeing with another person, don’t both “paddle off the same side at the same time, unless the overall plan includes going for a swim.”
3.} If canoeing alone when it’s exceptionally windy, move to the front of the canoe or weight it down with rocks or gear to make better progress.
4.} Make sure you and your wife (or husband) agree on the definition of left and right when direction-giving will be on the canoe outing agenda.
Both Gray and Hassett agreed that the Housatonic River is one of the best places in the Northeast to paddle a canoe. One can see all kinds of wildlife, from beaver, black bear and deer to ducks, osprey and, if lucky, otters and perhaps even a moose.
Gray’s favorite place to canoe is Woods Pond in October. Hassett’s favorite place to canoe is the Hinsdale Flats any time of year.
Gray’s future plans include making music, writing his book about the Housatonic that’s waiting in dozens of boxes to be written, giving canoe tours to educate and entertain eager and willing residents and tourists and seeing the Housatonic completely free of PCB contamination.
Hassett’s future plans: enjoying retirement, wintering in Florida, kayaking year-round and keeping an extra pair of socks handy for those days when dry feet are not an option.
Paddling the waterways is just part of a satisfying, unhurried lifestyle for both Gray and Hassett, a way to slow things down and look around once in awhile. They might both have read about a bear named Pooh.
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