The Paddler ezine Issue 49 Late Summer 2019 | Page 92
ThePADDLER 92
JOHN MACGREGOR
Switzerland is hardly an unknown destination for
canoeists, featuring as it does in the earliest tales of
hardy kayak explorers. Scottish lawyer John
MacGregor’s travels across Europe with his wooden
boat in the late 1800s were famously recounted in his
book ‘A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe on
Rivers and Lakes of Europe’, surely one of the earliest
travel books of its kind. It included detailed tales of
adventures MacGregor had on the Reuss, the Lakes of
Lucerne, Zug and Zurich, and the Rhine.
Unmistakably Swiss architecture
Were he to undertake his epic voyage again, there is
much in Switzerland that MacGregor would still
recognize today. His descriptions of the countryside
will seem familiar now because in many rural parts of
the countryside, little has changed. Superficially it has,
there is more traffic and agriculture as described by
McGregor is more mechanized these days. But farms
are still small and the waters still run clear, while the
Swiss remain curious, if still somewhat distant, when
approached by a foreign paddler asking for help in
broken German.
Briton Dave Storey, head of recreational canoeing for
the Swiss Canoe Federation (www.swisscanoe.ch), says
that – as John MacGregor found more than 120 years
ago – the country has a lot to offer the visiting paddler.
“As a venue for paddling, it’s mind-blowing to come here.
You can get very close to nature, enjoy lakes and rivers with
all sorts of possibilities for every level of canoeist. There are
many places you can only really reach by kayak and it’s
good for the expert and the beginner alike.”
HIGHTIDE KAYAK SCHOOL
Lake Thun, part of the Jungfrau mountain range near Interlaken
Ten years ago Storey set up Hightide Kayak School on
Lake Brienz in the heart of the Bernese Oberland.
Based near Interlaken (literally ‘between the lakes’), the
company offers courses, tours, rentals and expeditions.
The appeal of Lake Brienz is obvious at first glance –
the waters have a strangely attractive turquoise hue
due to the sediment washed into the lake by
mountain waters from the Lütschine and the Aare
rivers. At 260 metres at its deepest point, the lake is
also one of the five deepest in Switzerland, and while
a capsize will give paddlers a quick lesson in glacial
water temperatures, the lake remains paddleable even
in the depths of winter.