LACS JUMEAUX, Quebec, Canada

Kit for Paddling Through Stars Floating on a Lake. 2000. Photo by Damian Andrus.

Pulling Kit.

Canoeing on Lacs Jumeaux.

Each morning, dawn found me paddling through mysterious thick mist in an aged canoe using a worn-out paddle, so I decided to carve my own paddles. I started out with two linden logs, or limewood, and began carving. One side of each paddle had images of constellations, the night sky over Quebec in the winter. On the other side was a map of where we were, Lacs Jumeaux, “Twin Lake.”

The paddles worked well, and at night I would fill the boat with candles and ferry people to a floating dock on which I made a shelter with aromatic cedar boughs arching over an old Adirondack chair. The floating platform became a one-person domed observatory where one could sit to contemplate stars and be in the middle of the lake quietly alone.