Been to the BWCA many times, perhaps out of fear of damaging a rental canoe, or being stranded in the middle of the woods, on beaver dams that require us to get out, we have always unloaded then reloaded the canoe after lifting it over. I have never heard of anyone actually folding a canoe during a lift over fully loaded, is this something that we should be worried about or are we letting our fears add extra time to our trip. Would love to hear any stories you might have on the subject.

I think the trick to a pullover is to try to keep the some part of the weight floating. The tricky part usually seems to be getting in or out on the lower side of the dam. My boat is a bit longer at 18.5'. It makes some of those entrances and exits in a bit deeper water.

The only time we have gotten into trouble was when I had an over zealous bow paddler and a narrow stream at the top of the dam. We nosed up to the dam. He got out and pulled the boat forward so that I should have been able to get out. (I was still floating.) Well, he kept pulling and I ended up over the dam with the stern sitting on a branch about halfway down the dam and no bow paddler for ballast. Yup. I ended up in the moose-mucky water by the dam. The only thing hurt was my pride, but we had a discussion later about how I wanted my boat pulled over a beaver dam. We were on the Frost River so there were plenty more to come.

Probably not, but . . . I don't know how many anvils you take. I've done a lot of liftover/pullovers without even thinking about it. Each one is different though.

I never unload, unless the dam is exceptionally high and we’re going up stream. Usually we nose in, bow paddler gets out, rear paddler climbs over the packs. With one person on either side, we grab the gunwales and sort of walk it over. Never seemed even close to being in danger of folding up the canoe.

I hope somewhere an aluminum or royalex diehard is getting a chuckle out of this thread. I've dead-lifted kevlar canoes I own like marsonite describes but I'd stress it if I was in a rented ultralight. If I've got double-portage or more kind of gear I'll take some out. Usually we'll just each shoulder a pack but like boonie said, every dam is different.

No beaver dams but the year I bought my first kevlar, an Odyssey, we dead-lifted it using the carry handles on either end over all 8 portages between Kek and Ogish with our 2nd portage worth of gear still in the boat. I was in great shape back then! Made good time and the canoe is still going strong today.

It's a lot more common to set a canoe down on the wrong rock (or slide it into an unseen rock in a beaver dam) than it is to snap one in half. Just don't do anything foolish like hang one half in the air with weight in it.

Most beaver dams we rev up the speed and try to ram our way through! Fun! But you're talking about the established ones that are a full wall. These we play by ear. I don't think I've ever worried about my canoe buckling. If it can slide up and back down, that's what we do. If it needs to be lighter we'll unload whatever amount of weight we need to. Same for the shorter portages.

So are you saying this is the wrong technique?

BonzSF: "So are you saying this is the wrong technique?
"

Don’t let Piragis see this haha

FishGeek01: " I have never heard of anyone actually folding a canoe during a lift over fully loaded, is this something that we should be worried about or are we letting our fears add extra time to our trip. Would love to hear any stories you might have on the subject."

In 2019 WonderMonkey posted a trip report that included details of a poor lift-over technique and photos of the resulting damage.

TZ

Historically I wouldn’t have thought twice about this, but after my friend put stress cracks in a brand new Souris River Quetico a few years ago on a beaver dam pull over, I am more cautious