A new member of the crew

We chose it from Oskar, at Canoe Adventure North — the only specialised canoe shop in Norrbotten, at Kängsön near Råneå, an hour and a half from us. Oskar has been doing this since 2002, he knows everything that floats north of the 65th parallel, and we asked him for advice. He delivered the canoe himself. At 11 p.m.

It's an Esquif Prospector 15, red, in T-Formex. The Prospector is to canoes what the Siberian husky is to Nordic dogs: an ancient breed, robust, built for long distances and waters that hesitate between lake and river. It's been used in Canada for a hundred years to cross the Canadian Shield.

T-Formex, on the other hand, is younger — and its story is worth telling. For forty years, almost all expedition canoes in the world were built in Royalex, a material patented by Uniroyal in the 1970s (hence the name). In 2014, the last Royalex manufacturer decides to stop production: not profitable enough. For canoeists, it's the announced end of an entire family of boats. Esquif, a small Quebec company based in Frampton, goes bankrupt the following year. But its founder, Jacques Chassé, buys back his company and spends four years developing his own replacement material — T-Formex. That's what we have in our red canoe today.

We're already using it — not for covering kilometres, just to get the dogs used to it. For now, they're all scared.