Newfs are all excellent canoe dogs and each of our dogs has hiked with us extensively. Each has taken a canoe trip into the BWCA and Quetico Provincial Park in northern Ontario. Consie or I usually take a dog along when we got for a short solo jaunt by canoe; a newf is the perfect counter weight needed in the front of the canoe to make paddling easy.

      When I camped solo with a dog, the dog shares my tent. When we camp as a family, the dog gets the vestibule of the tent. Our newfs quickly learn to enjoy the pattern of paddling then portaging, cooking over a fire and sleeping in the tent. The dog on a trip always carries her own food and gear in her own backpack on the portages. The packs fit over a harness with velcroe that the dog wears all day. When we come to a portage, we slip the packs over the dog, line up the velcroe and clip 2 slips; the dog is then ready to go. Dogs always follow us on the trail but know to head into the woods to "get busy".

      Early on a canoe trip, a dog needs to find its confidence and then become over confident and think it knows everything about canoeing and camping. On one trip, Ishkoodah followed me the first day as I carried the canoe and my pack and traversed a long portage before Consie and Virginia, our daughter. We had had several portages, despite its being our first day, and Ishkoodah began to feel that she understood the canoe-trip routine. After putting the canoe into the small beaver pond at the end of the portage, I nudged it up to the granite shore firmly and headed back to check on Consie and Virginia. I told Ishkoodah to wait. I returned shortly, coming over a high ridge to look down at the canoe. There was Ishkoodah gingerly stepping into the canoe, figuring she would wait in the canoe rather than on the rock. What she did not know, however, was that I always held the canoe for her when she climbed in. So, as she stepped into the canoe, I watched it slip towards the center of the pond, leaving Ishkoodah to a dunking. After that, she waited for one of her people to hold the canoe before she got in.

      Milakokia was perhaps our best canoe camping dog. At least she was our best packing dog. She became an expert with her pack, never hitting it hard against a tree or rock and able to maneuver it through tight places. Mikikokia, however, was not enchanted with sleeping in the vestibule of the tent. When her people climbed into the tent to crash for the night, she looked around, clearly wondering where the cabin was where she would sleep.