The Debonaire

Classy and timeless, this ’old’ boat is still a part of the family Rosthern, Sask.

For one family, this sporty motorboat was— and still is—in a class all its own.

Iwas taking my kids fishing for the evening. Approaching the docks, fishing rods and tackle boxes in hand, my son’s friend asked, “Which boat is yours?”

“You see that fancy orange one that says Moomba?” I replied. The boy’s eyes widened, his mouth beginning to form the words, “No waa...”

“Our’s is behind that one,” I said.

Back in the summer of 1979, my dad decided our family needed a boat and I recall the exact instant when this decision formed in his mind. We’d been out fishing on a long Manitoba lake in a friend’s 12-foot fishing boat with an ancient sputtering engine, when a summer storm blew in. Miles from the boat launch and with nowhere to take shelter, we proceeded to drive headlong into the wind and waves—as you are supposed to do, my dad assured us—for what seemed an eternity. Somewhere between trying to keep his cigarette lit and ordering us to sit in a way to balance the tiny boat— which miraculously seemed to keep the three-foot swells from spilling over the bow and gunnels— the thought must have crystalized in my dad’s head. “We need a bigger boat.”

In 1980, a “bigger boat” meant something different than it does today. Back then, for our family of four, a bigger boat meant a 16-foot aluminum boat with a 20-horsepower engine equipped with—and I cannot overstate the importance this feature held for my older brother Darrin and me—a steering wheel.

My dad pulled the shiny metal miracle into the driveway one cool spring evening and the impression it left on me has never waned. The boat glimmered. Made entirely of polished and buffed aluminum, it reflected light like a kaleidoscope. It had a windshield, bow, steering wheel, a gear and throttle control console and a canopy with zip-out windows. On the “dashboard”

was riveted a stylish bronze crest that said Aroliner.

That evening, Darrin and I crawled all over the boat. We looked under the bow, sat in each of the possible places to sit, and, though the boat was on a trailer in the driveway, we fought desperately over who got to “drive.” We took turns making engine sounds and steering the wheel—avoiding imagined icebergs, tidal waves and bad guys. I remember asking, “Can we sleep in it?”

“Maybe some night, but not tonight,” my dad said. We were shuffled off to bed wondering when that night would be. As my brother and I made our way to bed, we looked out at the boat. Now it was his turn. My dad crawled all over the boat, looked under the bow and sat in each of the seats. Then he sat in the driver’s seat—i remind you that the boat was on a trailer in our driveway. We watched him light a cigarette, then dangle it off the side while placing his other hand on the steering wheel and practiced slow graceful turns. I always imagined he was making engine sounds.

The Aroliner Boat Company manufactured aluminum boats in its St. Boniface shop in Winnipeg from the 1930s through to the early 1990s. I recall passing the boat shop as a kid and seeing all the boats in stock neatly organized, stood on end and leaning on each other like men standing in a line. The boats came in a variety of styles and names, each connoting a certain characteristic of the design. Our boat was from the Debonaire line. “It means classy,” my dad said.

Docked humbly in the shadow of today’s brightly painted and more garish vessels, there continues to be a subtle class to the old Debonaire. With timeless smart lines, the Debonaire was the everyman’s entry into the world of boating. Humble. Smart. Practical. Classiness is like that. Debonair remains the best word to describe the old boat that again sits smartly among its louder, larger, often tattooed descendants.

We used the Debonaire for a number of years...the important years. My uncles bought similar boats and for about ten years we would make an annual fishing trip somewhere in Manitoba or northern Ontario. An extended family fishing derby was established and I recall the thrill of the convoy as three or four carloads of uncles, aunts and cousins— shiny aluminum boats in tow— would rendezvous then wind its way from the Prairies to the dark forests of Whiteshell and Nopiming parks.

On a return trip to the Manitoba lake where the idea to get a bigger boat initially took shape, we set up a day camp on a small island. Fishing from the shore with Darrin and Mom, I remember watching Dad repeatedly cruise towards us at full speed, turning away at what seemed like the last minute, leaving a generous frothy trail in his wake. I couldn’t figure out what he was doing. I wondered if something was wrong with the engine or if he was testing to make sure the steering was working.

“He’s having so much fun,” Mom said. Fun. Oh, right. It wasn’t a word we often associated with my dad, but as he sped past again, I could see him smiling, one hand on the wheel, the other dangling a cigarette over the side. Fun. So that’s what it looked like. We didn’t say anything. We just stood and watched and smiled with him.

Long before I would be able to drive a car, I’d honed the careful art of steering and navigating a boat. Careful, intentional, planned. Nothing jerky, nothing sudden. Once the criteria of learning to prime and pull-start the 20- horsepower Evinrude was mastered, permission was a mere formality. Learning to drive the boat on my own was a bigger right of passage than getting my driver’s license. Probably because I was only 13 years old, the significance of being trusted by my parents to take the boat from shore to a fishing hole for an hour or two was a form of freedom that is hard to explain. But Darrin and I experienced it

often. We took the boat. We fished. We smoked.

We caught a lot of fish in that boat and we confidently navigated many stretches of rough waters, laughing as the boat confidently bumped and rocked its way back to many ports of call. But, with time, the boat eventually frequented the waters less and less. Like many “old boats,” it became a bit of a yard fixture, a default storage container for lake life’s odds and ends. The stylish buffed aluminum hidden for years beneath raggedy blue tarpaulins.

“You should come and get it if you want it,” my dad said a few years back in a moment of downsizing. “If you don’t want it, we’ll probably just sell it.”

We made the epic latesummer journey from our home near Saskatoon to Winnipeg to retrieve the old boat. Our Debonaire was built in 1964. We’d bought it in 1980. It was a classy boat in its day. It served us well. I wondered if times had changed. I wondered if I had. Did I really want the boat? Would it serve my new family well?

The Debonaire’s new port of call is just east of Prince Albert National Park. Its motor still starts in a single pull. After dropping my kids off at the dock, I often take it out for a solo cruise. I cut smooth steady curves and occasionally look back at the s-shaped wake that slowly disappears into the surface waves, the boat’s signature, its past. If I still smoked, I’d dangle my cigarette over the edge. ■