User Reviews

The Everett household is bored inside on a rainy day. The professor (Richard Long) tells the family about a time when it rained for two weeks and he built a canoe with his brother. Hal (David Doremus) and Butch (Trent Lehman) now wants to build one and explore the cove at Squaw Lake like their father. The professor and Nanny (Juliet Mills) encourage them to build the easier task of a raft. The boys, Nanny, and sister Prudence (Kim Richards) work hard to complete it and name it "India Queen". They then question how they will get it to the lake but come up with a creative solution. As the men set sail, a salty fisherman (Paul Bryar) discovers a flaw in the raft that can pose great trouble to them in a surprise climax.

It's raining and Hal and Butch are bored, while the Professor is trying to finish a paper on the mathematical probability of something or other. He tells them how he and his brother built a canoe but suggests they try a raft, then becomes amazed as they actually do it. He gets roped in to help Nanny cut up a telephone pole to help float the raft - they get it together and hire a tow truck to get it to the lake the Professor and his brother had planned to cross but never did.

As the project is completed and the boys and their father set sail, Nanny reminds the Professor how nice it is to revisit one's boyhood, and the Professor joyously starts to revert, until by the time they get into the lake, he is as giddy as his sons are and even more determined to make the crossing. The paper he was writing is forgotten, to be picked up later and retitled to have something to do with the mathematical probability of doing the impossible.

A very sweet father and sons story, about the joy of being an adventurous kid, or being one for the second time.