canoe maker

Was very excited to follow Peter Marshall's 2014 expedition attempt re-creating the 1905 Labrador crossing by Mina Hubbard (original post here). Unfortunately, the journey was halted over the Wapustan portage due to injury but credit is due to the 2 man crew for attempting this isolated and challenging route.

In the meantime, I've been re-reading The Woman Who Mapped Labrador, a very well researched book which included Mina Hubbard's diary in print for the first time. This time around, I noted some of the gear used for the trip. Page 103 cites:

"In the hold were six maple paddles and two "Guides Special" canvas covered canoes, each "Dead Grass" in colour and 19 feet in length, purchased by Mina just a month before for $70.00 from the Old Town Canoe Company of Maine."

As an interesting aside, her original invoice for the two 19' Guide Special Canoes and 4 of the  paddles were posted onto this thread on the WCHA forums.  The remaining two paddles were evidently secured by George Elson later along their journey to North West River Post in Labrador.



On the 100th anniversary of the trip, the tiny village of North West River did a re-enactment of Mina Hubbard's departure. While the 19ft Old Town Guide Specials were no longer being built, 2 canoes were procured for the event and painted in that "dead grass" colour as documented in the invoice.




Here's the "George Elson" fellow posing with his paddle on shore...

These wide beam canoes were first marketed as "50-Pound Specials" since they weighed roughly 50 pounds and were nearly 10 pounds lighter than any other canoe of comparable size using novel construction methods of the time. Their relatively flat bottoms allowed for more stability when standing in flat water so were preferred by fisherman and other sportsmen.  A more detailed history of the Bobs Special (including the curious originating source of the name) can be read in this article by Kaydi Pyette of Canoe Roots magazine.

One of the more "famous" users of this canoe was Grey Owl (Archie Belaney). Here is a photo of him standing in an early model 50 Pound Special. The photo was taken during his stay in Prince Albert Nation Park sometime after 1931.



Back in 2010, I wrote a post researching Grey Owl's paddles and discovered that one of the paddles he used is kept in his cabin on Lake Ajawaan, SK. That post also has 2 silent films from the National Film Board of Canada showcasing his skills in a canoe.

Anyway, the Ebay canoe up for sale needs new canvas along with some minor planking and seat repairs. But overall, it looks to be in great condition for the age. What caught my attention however, is the original home-made tumpline (all stitched - no rivets) along with a custom carved notched carrying bar.




A closeup shows a carved indent in the middle of the carrying bar where it was lashed with a separate piece of cordage to the centre thwart. Additional cordage is wrapped with hitches to slide the paddle blades through.


Apparently this canoe has its original canvas and has sat unused under a cabin for quite a while. Either way, the original paddler knew about this method of rigging. Hopefully, this interesting canoe will be purchased by someone who will restore it and bring it back to its full tripping glory.

A little bit of canoe history is up for grabs for the enthusiastic collector. Well known instructional paddler Becky Mason (daughter of the canoeing icon Bill Mason) is offering one of her dad's wooden paddles for sale on Ebay. Here's the direct link.


The description from Becky:

This Clement paddle is a 60" long and has a 6" wide blade of laminated softwood that was one of canoeing icon Bill Mason's personal paddles. He used it in rapids and flatwater so he applied fiberglass on the tip to strengthen it. At the time, circa 1970's, a Clement paddle was one of the most popular makes of paddle. Bill usually marked his paddling gear with one line of gray and one line of red duct tape which you can see in the image on the paddle shaft.

Looks like the auction is open only until June 4th and is already passed the $300 (US) mark in bidding as of this morning. Good luck to everyone and congrats to final winner.

June 5 Update: The auction is over and Bill's paddle sold for a very handsome price of $525 US

Along the lines of some earlier posts featuring Hollywood canoeing celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Maureen O'Sullivan, and Vera Ellen  is this vintage pic of Charlie Chaplin paddling with style...

Found another vintage paddling photo - this one a postcard of silent film actress, Pearl White.



The canoe is a gorgeous looking closed-gunnel model with considerable tumblehome and slender, classic heart shaped decks. Her paddle has some decorative banding on the blade...

One of my new favourite vintage canoeing pics. This one of Hollywood actress Vera Ellen (1945) putting her weight behind a paddle stroke...

Katie Ohlke of Stone Ridge Art Studio  has created some wonderful paddle art reflective of the historical impact of Tom Thomson in Canadian Art. Below are some pics of her paddle creations. The first is an evocative piece that carries some of the mysterious symbolism of Thomson's death on Canoe Lake in 1917. Thomson's facial profile is carved into the blade and the base of the grip is wrapped 17 times with copper wire.

 The Backstory: When his overturned canoe was found floating on the lake, one of the two paddles he carried was lashed to the thwarts for portaging...the other paddle was missing and never found despite a thorough search for weeks after. Wood paddles float so finding it shouldn't have been much a challenge according to search parties. When Thomson's body was discovered some distance away, a large wound was found on the side of his head while his left ankle reportedly had 17 wraps of fishing line tied in a very deliberate fashion. All this created the suspicion of the paddle used as a murder weapon thereby adding to the mystery.

The midsection of the canoe looks to have undergone some amateur repair and the whole thing is obviously much shorter than a real tripping canoe...what happened to the seats?

Canoe used in the film (Burt Reynolds Museum)

The Disaster Scene - split occuring at the midpoint

Wonder if any of the actors ever went real canoe tripping after filming wrapped up?

Long paddles for Stand Up Paddling (SUP) have become all the rage, but here's more evidence that SUP is nothing new. This 1898 historic photo featurs a weathered bark canoe and some long Abenaki style paddles. Many similar pics from this era feature paddles that were quite taller than the paddler's height, likely for the need to paddle standing up to navigate the shallow, rocky rivers in Maine/New Brunswick.





Athian Lewey, West Grand Lake, 1898
Full Citation


Closeup of paddle on bark canoe

John Summers, the General Manager at the Canadian Canoe Museum, wrote a post on his blog about carving a paddle design by legendary Peterborough area builder, Walter Walker.

Apparently Walter had a favourite shape that was based on a late 19th century pattern from the Lakefield Canoe Company. It featured small shoulders at the top of a straight sided, narrow blade, as well as a pear grip with smaller shoulders at the base.


Walter Walker's 19th Century Lakefield Canoe Co pattern
Also found in Walter�s workshop was a split, weathered paddle apparently carved from birdseye maple. It had longer, curved shoulders at the top of the blade but features the similar style grip as the Lakefield Co. pattern. John ended up carving a replica of this (adjusted to his preferred length) out of cherry.






The museum apparently has a new display devoted to Walter's work - another reason to make the trip out to Peterborough again. Walter was actively building canoes until he turned 99 and carved his last paddle at 101!

From the Portland Press Herald comes this article which features a paddle made by famous Passamaquoddy, Tomah Joseph. No closeup of the grip, but the shoulders of the paddle have some nice etchings


Descendants of famous Passamaquoddy chief Tomah Joseph, from left, Joan Dana, Natalie Dana and Cassandra Dana show off a paddle made by Joseph and on display at the Passamaquoddy Cultural Heritage Center & Museum in Indian Township.

An old thread on the WCHA forums featuring Marilyn Monroe in a canoe resulted in post by Dave Osborn featuring other Hollywood actors lounging in a gorgeous canoe.

Of course, wooden canoe fans first tried to I.D. the beautiful boat and the conclusion was a Kennebec. After than folks were guessing at the ID of the couple with no definitive answers. Recently I came across an ad posted on EBAY ad featuring the same shot, which identified the actors as Joel McCrea & Maureen O'Sullivan, who played the original Jane in the first Tarzan movie! They starred in a film together in 1935 called Woman Wanted. This shot may be promo photo or image from the film. Either way, it's one of my favourite vintage canoe pics.

Having previously posted on the paddles of certain canoe "Celebrities" like Gabriel Acquin, Eric Morse, and Grey Owl, I thought I'd revisit another post from the past on this blog...specifically that of famed Passamaquoddy Tomah Joseph (1837-1914). Here are some zoomed shots showing some of his paddle's features.

Came across this interesting pic on Flickr of U.S. President Calvin Coolidge being guided in his all-wood, board and batten style canoe. The caption is from the Flickr page.

President Calvin Coolidge fishing at Cedar Island Lodge, rustic lodge of Henry C. Pierce, 35 miles from Superior, Wisconsin, on the Brule River. This lodge was later dubbed The Summer White House. The canoe is named Beaver Dick and the guide is John LaRock.

The juvenile in me couldn't help but chuckle at the Commander-in-Chief's chosen name for his personal watercraft

The tight canoeing community here in Canada is saddened by the loss of one of this country's iconic characters - Kirk Wipper, who amongst other accomplishments in an amazing lifetime, collected hundreds of watercraft that eventually became the collection of the Canadian Canoe Museum. A touching tribute can be read on CCM's site, here.

I never met Kirk personally, but it was through his efforts that the Canoe Museum was founded and this where I learned the fun hobby of paddlemaking by taking a weekend course there back in '07. I recalled that while we were busy carving away on our shaving horses on the Saturday afternoon, Kirk swung by the museum and gazed down at us, the crowd of novice woodworkers. It was almost like a proud father watching his children learning a new skill. We all paused for a moment to listen to his words of encouragement and then he was off to tour the rest of collection with a friend.

The museum has really become of favourite place of mine and for someone who rarely likes to visit the same place twice, this says a lot about the beautiful collection they have on display. So from myself and any readers who appreciate this blog, I send a heartfelt thank you to the man who is responsible for preserving this vital part of Canadian culture.

Don't know if the title of this post caused you to pause for a moment. Marilyn Monroe, sex symbol of the 20th century, a canoeist? Well, The Toronto Star had an article a while back entitled "Red, white and blonde" describing a current exhibit of the blonde bombshell at the McMichael Gallery (Running February 19 to May 15, 2011). The Star article has an untitled photo with a clear shot of Marilyn paddling the stern of a closed gunnel, cedar canvas canoe with the gorgeous Canadian Rockies in the Background


Marilyn in Canoe, 1953
This earlier thread from the WCHA forums has another pic of Marilyn posing with a Mountie. The conclusion was that these pics were taken in Banff as while she was filming River of No Return.


Marilyn with a Mountie, 1953
It also happens that this isn't the first time Marilyn was filmed paddlng. An obscure 1947 film called Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!, featured scenes of Marilyn and another hollywood hopeful paddling a canoe. The following stills were found on this Monroe Fan Site. If you're a fan of Marilyn and Wooden canoes, these photos are sheer joy...

Came across an exciting new resource for canoe history junkies. The LA84 Foundation has all the archived issues of Outing magazine which features some fantastic reads (all in .PDF format)

Outing was a late-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American magazine covering a variety of sporting activities. It began publication in 1882 as The Wheelman and had four title changes before ceasing publication in 1923. Since all of these US works were published before 1923, they are considered to be public domain according to US Copyright Law so over the next little while I'll be featuring some great articles and photos.

To start off, I found an article entitled, "Frederic Remington, the Man" by Edwin Wildman. It documents the personality of one of America's most well-known illustrators and outdoor artists. The article also includes a stunning photo of the artists by the shore holding his paddle and his birchbark canoe by the shallows.


With his bark canoe


Paddle Closeup
Some of Remington's paintings feature a bark canoe with a dramatic sheerline (online gallery here and here). It seems his real canoe served as the model for one of my favourite pieces of his, Coming to the Call (1905)


Coming to the Call
Frederic Remington
c. 1905


The Howl of the Weather, aka The Squall
1905/6, published 1907 in Collier's Weekly

Here's a sort of "Celebrity Paddle" photo that perhaps many people don't know about...


Ebay Link

The pic is a rare photo of John Smith (also known as "Boshkung Bill") who in 1934, hatched the idea of paddling his canoe from Peterborough, Ontario to Peterborough, England attempting to be the first to cross the mighty Atlantic in an open canoe.

His 16 foot boat, called the Pride of Peterborough, was loaded with gear & supplies (including fresh water) and rigged with a sail. You can just see his paddle in the corner of the photo. Looks like he attempted to get across the ocean with a toothpick!

Unfortunately, not every dream ends up successful. Somewhere off the Gasp� peninsula during his 400+ km leg to Newfoundland, a typical Atlantic storm hit. Smith's body, surf-bashed canoe and supplies washed up on various beaches along the shoreline.

For more info on Smith and his ill-fated journey, check out the The Fall 2009 edition of CanoeRoots Magazine which had a brief writeup on Smith's misadventure.

A while back, I came across this intriguing print on LiveAuctioneers.com with the listing title of "Original Albumen Photograph American Indian Guide".


"INDIAN GUIDE, c. 1870".
Details from the site mentioned a date of circa 1870. An original period photograph, it measures 2.25" x 3.5" and is housed in a beveled 5.25" x 8.25" period mat. The subject, according to the pencil notation below the image, "INDIAN GUIDE, c. 1870", is seen standing leaning on a canoe paddle. Unfortunately, no details regarding the identity of the subject were available.

Later, thanks to an email from blog reader Luc Poitras, I learned the image is of Gabriel Acquin, a Maliseet (Wolastoqiyik) guide who was the first to permanently settle on land that would eventually become St. Mary's First Nation.


Gabe Acquin (St. Mary's), c. 1866
University of New Brunswick Archives
In the photo Acquin is holding a rough looking paddle with an elongated grip typical of this region. Found a detailed bio page that mentioned some pretty neat stuff about the man. Here's an excerpt...

A turning-point in Gabe�s life occurred in 1860 when the 18-year-old Prince of Wales visited Fredericton. Passing by Government House in his canoe, Gabe was hailed by the prince, who asked for a ride. Against the remonstrances of equerries and household, Gabe paddled the future king across the river and into the mouth of the Nashwaak River before returning. Gabe was subsequently invited to England, first in 1883 as one of Canada�s entries in the International Fisheries Exhibition in London. With his canoe and wigwam and wearing an outfit beaded by his wife, an extraordinarily talented craftswoman, he set up camp on the ponds of South Kensington, renewed old friendships with royalty and officers he had known, and became, in the words of William Austin Squires, �the greatest social lion of the day.� Gabe is reputed to have gone to England again in the 1880s though this claim is undocumented. He was 82 when he took his last trip there, in 1893�94 with Paul Boyton�s World�s Water Show.

Another "Celebrity Paddle" featured at the Canadian Canoe Museum is that of Eric Morse (1904 - 1986). A display to Morse features a worn canvas pack and packbasket along with a tripping paddle featuring the Coat of Arms of the Northwest Territories where Morse did a significant amount of paddling.


Eric Morse Display at the CCM


Blade closeup
Recently ordered a copy of Morse's Paddling Memoir, Freshwater Saga from a used bookstore and found it a pleasure to read. I was surprised to find out that although Morse was a lifelong outdoor enthusiast, he was 49 when the he and several diplomats in the fledgling United Nations began their arduous annual canoe treks. Dubbed "The Voyageurs" by the media, they were the first group of recreational canoeists to travel remote wilderness areas just for pure paddling pleasure. Very inspirational!

More info on the group and their travels can be read at this link here.