Beaver Brothers Explorer Canoes

Beaver Brothers Explorer Canoes
Park	Tokyo Disneyland
Land / area	Critter Country
Type	Free-floating canoe ride
Opened	April 15, 1983
Status	Operating

Beaver Brothers Explorer Canoes is a guest-paddled canoe attraction in Critter Country at Tokyo Disneyland in Urayasu, Chiba, Japan. Guests board a long, free-floating canoe on the Rivers of America and provide most of its power themselves, paddling around Tom Sawyer Island under the direction of two guides. It is Tokyo Disneyland's version of the explorer canoe attractions first created for Disneyland in California, and one of the least mechanised attractions in any Disney park: there is no track, no motor and no recorded narration, only paddles, river traffic and the pace the crew in each boat can manage together.

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History

A canoe attraction was part of Tokyo Disneyland from its opening day, April 15, 1983. At first it belonged to Westernland, Tokyo's equivalent of Frontierland, and carried the Davy Crockett name used in the United States — usually rendered Davy Crockett Explorer Canoes. The canoes shared the Rivers of America with the Mark Twain Riverboat and the rafts to Tom Sawyer Island, much as they did in California and Florida.

The attraction took its present name and land in 1992. On October 1, 1992 Tokyo Disneyland opened Splash Mountain and, with it, a new small land, Critter Country, carved out at the far end of the Rivers of America. The canoe dock fell inside the new land, and the ride was renamed for the Beaver Brothers — in the backstory developed for Tokyo's Splash Mountain, the beaver brothers whose dam above Chickapin Hill burst and helped create the flume's flooded landscape. Critter Country has only two attractions, Splash Mountain and the canoes, which makes the renamed ride the land's quiet counterweight to its headline flume.

The Tokyo canoes have outlasted most of their siblings. The Magic Kingdom and Disneyland Paris versions both closed in 1994, while versions continue at Disneyland in California, under the Davy Crockett name, and at Shanghai Disneyland, where Explorer Canoes sail from Treasure Cove. Tokyo's, under the Beaver Brothers name, remains the only version named for characters from its own land's story.

Experience

Guests board at a dock at the far end of Critter Country, reached only through Westernland. Each canoe carries roughly eighteen to twenty guests, seated in pairs, and every guest is handed a paddle before departure. Two guides ride along, one at the bow and one at the stern; they steer, set the paddling rhythm and give a running commentary in Japanese on the sights along the banks, but the forward motion is supplied by the passengers.

Before the canoe leaves the dock, the lead guide demonstrates how to paddle, and the crew practises moving together. The route circles Tom Sawyer Island on the Rivers of America, following much the same course as the Mark Twain Riverboat but at water level and at the crew's own speed, with pauses along the way that let paddlers rest. From the canoes guests see the island's trails and forts, the Westernland shoreline and the other river craft from a lower and slower vantage point than any of them offer.

Because the boats are genuinely free-floating and human-powered, no two trips run to quite the same timing: a strong, coordinated crew makes brisk progress, while a boat of first-time paddlers travels more sedately. The effort involved is the attraction's point as much as its drawback, and on warm days the canoes are often recommended precisely because the work is shared, splashy and sociable rather than intense.

See also

• Tokyo Disneyland
• Critter Country
• Splash Mountain
• Mark Twain Riverboat
• Tom Sawyer Island
• List of Tokyo Disneyland attractions