I didn’t realize canoeing was so obscure to an American general audience, but I guess my Canadian is showing. I don’t think it’s “technical details” when I’ve seen overseas tourists see a canoe for the first time ever and after a 15-minute lesson, executing j-strokes.
It’s like a politician using the “bowling theory” (I assume most Americans are familiar with bowling) and describes that theory as, “It’s like bowling. You want to keep both hands on the ball to gently guide it towards it’s target.” Basically any first timer should be throwing the ball with one hand (with a few exception in those too young/disabled/etc.) to get the best results.
Where I live, most public school students will at some point in their education will go on a (free) field trip to a nature preserve or national/provincial park which often includes canoeing. Even in downtown Toronto, there’s a notable push to expose students to nature and they’ve been bussing classes out of the city for a day.
I don’t know, maybe I’m just lucky (though I wouldn’t say entitled), that paddling around in a canoe/kayak is pretty normalized. I looked up some rentals around me and they were <$50 for a full day. Of course some can’t afford that, but it feels like a pretty good value for a full day of family activity.
If the meaning of the analogy is clear to a general audience, then criticizing the analogy based on technical details like this is silly.
I didn’t realize canoeing was so obscure to an American general audience, but I guess my Canadian is showing. I don’t think it’s “technical details” when I’ve seen overseas tourists see a canoe for the first time ever and after a 15-minute lesson, executing j-strokes.
It’s like a politician using the “bowling theory” (I assume most Americans are familiar with bowling) and describes that theory as, “It’s like bowling. You want to keep both hands on the ball to gently guide it towards it’s target.” Basically any first timer should be throwing the ball with one hand (with a few exception in those too young/disabled/etc.) to get the best results.
If you assume everyone can afford canoe lessons, that comes across as pretty entitled to those of us who don’t have expendable income like that.
Where I live, most public school students will at some point in their education will go on a (free) field trip to a nature preserve or national/provincial park which often includes canoeing. Even in downtown Toronto, there’s a notable push to expose students to nature and they’ve been bussing classes out of the city for a day.
I don’t know, maybe I’m just lucky (though I wouldn’t say entitled), that paddling around in a canoe/kayak is pretty normalized. I looked up some rentals around me and they were <$50 for a full day. Of course some can’t afford that, but it feels like a pretty good value for a full day of family activity.