canoe maker

Not directly related to paddle making, but I'm a sucker for these vintage canoeing pics. These ones are LIFE magazine from a series entitled "1942 Potomac Canoe Trip". Love the second shot - the ladies seem perfectly relaxed.  Think I'll be scrounging around some scrap wood to build an appropriate backrest for my special lady.

Here's a great little page from Boys Life, July 1953 for anyone wanting to make some traditional canoe gear. The double article features plans for a wanigan and a quick photo series on making a leather tumpline. Click the link or the image for a larger view...

Came across an interesting illustration of the portaging method in The Way of the Woods, by Edward Breck (1908). It showcases the method of lashing paddles to the center thwart to shoulder the canoe. What caught my eye was how the paddle shafts are pointed to the stern and the canoeist is gripping the thwart in front. This seems reversed to most methods I've seen where the shafts face forward and has been labeled "Micmac Style" by the author.




This method is also demonstrated in a YouTube video of Tim Smith of Jack Mountain Bushcraft showcasing this method on a portage on his video,  Canoe Expedition Course (7 of 15) (go to the 1:30 mark to see). Seems to work well if you have a quarter thwart positioned in the perfect spot.


Contrast that to the more common carry method illustrated from Homer Halsted's later publication, How to Live in the Woods (1948). An image from page 124 shows the details for lashing and the paddle facing forward so the canoeist can hold the shafts for support...

Still another method is to lash the paddles (shafts forward) but tied together by a single lashing so that the paddles are no longer parallel. I first came across this method described as the "Montagnais" method described in Paul Provencher's book, I Live In The Woods (more about that book in this post here)





The last version of this is to reverse the paddle position and cross the blades on the forward thwart while lashing the grips to the center. Came across this in the online book, Building the Chippewa Canoe by Robert E.  Ritzenthaler.


The last method is the method I tend to favour with my smaller 14' cedar canvas as it feels less claustrophobic to me. The combination of the tump and contoured yoke make for an easy carry. The blade forward position makes the bow a bit heavy, but this is offset with the fact that I lash my kneeling pad and some other stuff to the seat in the rear and that creates some balance...

Back in the summer after my poling excursion on the Big East River, I made a quick canoe camp shelter for some relief against the heat and sun...


Here's one I came across in Boy's Life, March 1944 showing how the canoe can be supported with paddles lashed to the gunnels while a small rain poncho is tied off . Not much headroom here but interesting...


Edward Breck's 1908 publication, The Way of the Woods, has a basic setup of a propped up canoe on pg. 75



I found the source of this artistic image when perusing through the 1910 online version of In the Maine Woods (p.40) on Archive.org.





Boy's Life, April 1957 has a brief writeup on Lean-To Shelters including a sketch of a canoe shelter with a rigged tarp and forked sticks holding up the overturned canoe. It looks comfy only because the paddlers are tiny kids - no way I'd fit under an overturned canoe like this...




This one from Popular Science, May 1962 seems a little too involved, but at least the canoe is ready to portage after breaking camp...

One of the winter projects I've been working on is a folding, portable camp stool - something that would fit easily into my Woods 200 pack. Ended up inspired by this online tutorial from  Wood & Faulk...



Although I didn't have the exact hardware as the tutorial, some other usable bits were found that worked adequately (3" long, 1/4" carriage bolt with wing nut; 3/16th eye bolt & wingnut). The legs were made from some left over 1-1/4" dowels that were collecting dust in the basement. 2 of the legs in my version are poplar, the remaining leg an older piece of red oak. The assembly pictures & instructions are very clear in the original online tutorial so didn't take pics of those steps.

I don't usually carry a camp chair when paddling but thought this might be a nice compromise. When it's not in use on trips, I plan to use it to do some carving in the backyard. However, instead of using the original tutorial design of bolting the seat permanently to the legs, I wanted a more flexible solution that would also allow just the seat to be removed. Another online tutorial from Willow Haven Outdoors incorporated a design with folded ends where the legs fit by simple friction. This way, as a lighter option,  just the seat could taken with legs fashioned in camp from thick branches lashed together.

I had a nice piece of tooling leather left over from other projects that just fit the bill and fashioned a simple triangular design for the seat on the underside of the leather



The test run for the camp stool worked and supports my ever growing weight, but the plain leather seat was just calling out to be decorated....



I thought the scratchy nature of the artwork would work well burned into the leather. The image had to be modified somewhat to fit the triangular dimensions of the seat. Here is the incomplete image being burned...



I while back I was asked about the tools used for decorative pyrography. I use the Canadian made Razortip SK Pyrography machine. Great little contraption that allows for a range in shading tones. Here is the end result of the seat before sealing with a waterproofing conditioner which darkens the leather a bit...



The bottoms of the dowels were crudely rounded with a crooked knife so the stool would rock less. To seal the dowels, some left over deck stain was used giving them a warm reddish tint. Here is the stool against another dusting of snow in Toronto.



With the seat removed, the legs collapse back into an easily transported package...

An Ebay seller has a pair of copper paddle tip protectors which are apparently from the 1950's.  Back in 2010, I wrote a brief post on these old-school paddle accessories for anyone who is interested...


 

Scrap piece of Sassafras

Ends notched to fit over gunnels

Came up with this idea to combine the carrying bar with the Stewart River portage pads picked up last season. Basically some additional notches were cut to accomodate the pads and once they were secured with their bolts and wing-nuts, the whole apparatus was secure. The tumpline was lashed in using the methods described by Heb Evan in his book. This way I can still lashed the paddles in reverse style with the grips on the thwart and the blades resting on the seat while comfortably (relatively) supporting the canoe on the shoulders.

"The traditional carrying bar was not lashed with marline hitches, though it appears so in the photos. Nor are there any overhand knots on it. The lashing actually doubles back to form a double lash. The single lash wears out quickly where it meets the edge of the paddle. For some reason Heb�s photo is not of the double-back lashing. The carrying bar in that photo has been hand routed (also can�t be seen) in the traditional way to prevent the lashing from slipping from the left and right anchor points."

Apparently there is plenty of info about tumplines and other traditional wilderness canoeing methods in Back's book entitled, The Keewaydin Way  for anyone else who may be interested.

Another off-season project I have been gradually working is a leather sling seat for the 15ft cedar canvas canoe. Paddling solo means kneeling as close to the center point of the canoe as possible. With my shorter, symmetrical 14foot canoe, the bow seat is perfectly positioned to paddling the canoe "backwards" so that my rump can rest on the edge of the seat and take weight off the heels if needed. With this option and full kneeling on the bottom of the hull, paddling the 14 footer is a joy.

The longer 15ft cedar canvas logically has its seats positioned further towards the ends of the canoe and paddling in reverse while resting on the bow seat results in an awkward stern heavy position when the boat is unloaded. So a solution was in order. I considered the idea of adding a permanent kneeling thwart but then wanted to explore a more removable option - hence the pursuit of a personalized sling seat.

Tom Seavey of Azland Traditions is the creator of Original Saddle Seat. I've seen a few first hand at some canoe gatherings and have always admired the quality leather workmanship. Here's shot of one I took at the WCHA Assembly held in Peterborough back in '08


Original Saddle Seat by Azland Traditions
I'm assuming this design was meant to be used as true seat with folks sitting while paddling...it is quite wide and sturdily built. Since I was making a sling seat for exclusively kneeling, I figured that the dimensions could be narrower.

While Tom's design is stunning, there was one more issue I had with my personal style of paddling. After maybe an hour or so paddling on one side, I might switch sides and heel the boat the other way to give muscles a needed break. This means the seat would need to be able to slide from the extreme port to extreme starboard side of the boat. Tom's design with its 4 independent straps doesn't allow for instant adjustment. The buckles would need to be undone and the seat repositioned each time.

Another option was for the seat to "ride" on webbing straps tied to the inwales. Stewart River Boatworks sells a canvas canoe seat with webbing that looks promising as well but hand stitching waxed canvas isn't my idea of fun.


Stewart River Canvas Canoe Seat
Eventually, I came across BigBlue's post on WildSurvive featuring a pic of his homemade sling seat made of a combination of leather and webbing straps.


BigBlue's Leather Sling Seat
His design with two layers of leather laced together riding on webbing straps strung across the boat fit the bill. I didn't have enough leather on hand to mimic his design and wasn't crazy about the lacing idea.

So my own version involved a 8" wide by 20" long piece of veg tan leather along with two 6ft long, 1-1/2" wide straps to sling across the inwales. The straps would be fashioned into a simple belt. To prevent the edge of the leather seat from digging into the skin, I thought I would fold over the edges and lace them in place by playing around with some grommets and scrap piece of leather lace.


8"x20" piece with grommets


Edges folded in and tightened with lace
Leather is a suitable medium for pyrography and like my EBook cover made a while back, I obviously wanted some canoe related theme. I was aiming for a sort of old-fashioned, western look with a paddler & bark canoe rather than a typical horse & rider scene. After finding some clipart on the web, here is my adaptation.


Burned decoration
Of course the leather gets darker when stained and treated with waterproofing finishes but here is the completed project...


Finished saddle seat
Before the very late freezeup of the lake this year, I got the chance to try out the sling seat on a short jaunt. Here's how it looks on strapped in...


Buckled into the boat
Because of the rib positions and the dimensions of the actual seat, the belt straps don't end up running parallel so the seat can't slide completely side to side as originally intended...oh well. I also seemed to have lost one belt keeper loop that keeps the straps nice and taught at the inwale, but all in all, it worked well. I ended up moving it one rib location further astern than the pic after giving it a trial run and this allowed to get into a full kneeling position behind the centre thwart if I wanted to and then quickly come up onto the seat if needed. Overall, it was more than sufficient to support my (ever growing) weight and is comfortable enough when paddling in the kneeling position to keep the weight off the heels. Plus, being a not permanent and removable accessory, it can be taken off and put into another canoe if needed.

Hope everyone is having a good holiday season. I've been a bit of a good boy I guess, because Santa delivered some presents in the form of some canoe accessories from Stewart River Boatworks.

My newly acquired 15 cedar canvas is a pretty heavy boat, weighing in at 68lbs dry. The ash gunnels, decks, shoe keel and heavy canvas all add up to too many pounds for my liking. Being a heavier-duty boat than my other 14 foot W/C, this one is intended to be a bit of a user for poling up rocky rivers & creeks in my areas with minimal portaging.

But since carrying the boat is always going to be inevitable, I thought I'd try out some clamp-on Portage Pads which seem to be quite popular in the BWCA - Minnesota area. Also ended up getting the waxed canvas kneeling pads. Here is all the new gear in the boat right before it was packed away for good at the end of November. This was also my chance to try out the completed Peter Polchies Ash Malecite. It's now Boxing Day and winter is barely here. A few pathetic centimeters of snow where normally it should be around a meter and the lake is completely unfrozen and open. I might've packed away the canoe too early this year and if things work out, might be able to get another paddle in.






The portage pads appear quite bulky but they get the job done, even when used on a straight centre thwart as in my boat. I'm planning to carve a non-dished, curved center yoke as a winter project and eventually will use the pads with this new replacement.

In anticipation of the paddling season coming to an end (always a depressing time for me), I had splurged on a bit of retail therapy to help my mood - a WindPaddle sail. When a breeze picks up during paddling trips, many folks rig up a makeshift sail with paddles and tarps for some downwind crusing. I've done the same when paddling with a partner, but solo canoeing makes it more akward. This sail seems to fit the needs of solo paddlers and was different from any other product I've seen out there - a fiberglass, tensioned hoop supporting some ripstop nylon clipped to a boat and controlled by a loop of line (sheets) from the shoulders of the sail.

It can be folded to 1/3 of its size and pop-up ready for action at a moment's notice. I liked the fact that it was absurdly lightweight (13 oz.) and did not require any permanent modification to your canoe...it can be simply secured to seats or thwarts with two unobstrusive clips


On the stern seat for scale>
The larger version of this sail (the "Cruiser") has been reviewed by canoeists before...check out this one over on Song of the Paddle. Since my boat is a very light, 14footer I went with the smaller, more manageable "Adventure" sail which seemed a better fight for my canoe. Like MagiKelly's review, I found the sheets to be awkward to hold at the location the sail was placed...so I ended up using an extra bit of line tied with a tautline hitch on one end which allowed for some lateral adjustment and attached this new line to the center yoke with a quick-release highwayman's hitch. This freed up my hands to steer with a paddle and in case I needed to bail out, a quick yank of the free end line and the sail would immediately collapse forward onto the deck and power down.


Rigged up with clips to the seat
You can also power down by pulling the lines in - after a very moment of acceleration, the wind spills over the top and the sail collapses under its own weight. It would then rest easily on the the widest portion of the canoe until you flicked it up again to catch any wind. In practice, this is where my tripping packs would be and the sail could easily lay on top of them without hindering any paddling performance. When portage time begins, it can then be recoiled and secured to the seat easily enough for transport across the trail.


Easily pulled forward


When needed again, a quick flip up and the sail begins to capture wind again...
All in all a lightweight bit of gear that I plan to bring along on some overnight trips next summer to take advantage of any blowing wind.


Windpaddle Power