canoe maker

Fort Severn Canoe Project

Paddle friend, Mike O, has been up in remote Fort Severn, the most norther community in Ontario working on restoring some of the wood canvas freight canoes used by the locals. Mike's been regularly posting slideshow updates of the team's work on his site. In one post, he mentioned that village men brought in a book with black and white photos from years ago showing the different uses of these workhorse canoes. Unfortunately the book's cover was torn off, so the title of the book is not known.

One of the shots features a man carving a huge poling paddle out of spruce. The descriptive caption explains that these paddles had a short lifespan given their tough usage. Explains why so few Native canoe paddles make it to museums...they were meant to be used and discarded. What was more important was the knowledge and skills to make another one....




April 30, 2012 UPDATE: The Fort Severn restoration project has made the national news in Canada. CBC aired a brief segment and published a small writeup on the ongoing efforts. Congrats to Mike O and the team for really making a difference in the paddling community.







May 5, 2012 UPDATE: Thanks to reader, Joe for sourcing out the title of the book. Hudson Bay Watershed: A Photographic Memoir of the Ojibway, Cree, and Oji-CreeJohn Macfie, Basil Johnston