canoe maker

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

One of my favourite pics from the Keewaydin Photo Archives...snubbing down rapids in a birchbark canoe!

For quite a while now, I've wanted to build a wanigan box to add to my homemade collection traditional canoe gear. The intention was not to build a heavy duty wanigan for rough use, but instead make something functional for light duty tripping and some of my upriver poling trips. Plus, there was a a growing pile of wood scraps and leather components accumulating in the house so thought this would be great winter project to use up some stuff.

Wanigan construction is pretty straight forward and there are some online tutorials on various construction methods on the web.

� Wanigan article from (Boys Life, 1953) posted on this site

� this online tutorial by the Northwest Woodsman

� Connor Mihell's Canoe & Kayak magazine article, "Winter project: the DIY wannigan"

� Mike McIntosh's wanigan build on this myccr thread

� Art Mulder's greatly illustrated tutorial on familywoodworking.org


Years ago, I had cut a sheet of 4'x4' - 1/4" birch plywood into panels to do some pyrography artwork. Some of the left-over pieces included 12" x 20" boards that seemed perfect to use in this wanigan project. So ultimately, these pieces determined the overall dimensions of the build. Overall this means it is smaller than the typical tripping size wanigans out there, but I'll be using it solo anyway so it won't be too overloaded with stuff.

The bottom piece and two short sides are from 1 x 12 pine left over from building some crude shelves for a storage room.


With some waterproof glue and brass screws, the basic box was pretty straight forward to put together.





The tumpline headstrap was made using a 3" wide by 15" long piece of veg tan leather. After roughly measuring the wanigan box, it was determined that roughly 9 feet tails were needed to tie up the rig. My local leather shop had a great sale on and I was able to pick up three, 3/4" by 6' straps at a great price (basically like a 3 for 1 deal) since they had some minor surface damage. One of these straps was cut in half and the resulting 3 foot pieces were stitched and riveted onto the end of the other 6' straps to complete the required length. The whole thing took a while to oil but it was a pretty relaxing process while the weather outside was so crappy.



Many wanigans also have an inner rail to support a tray for loose kitchen items. Wasn't sure I was going to do this until I remember an unused 11"x14" birch gallery art panel. Once inverted this art panel (built with a 2" frame) could be a light duty tray. Turns out it fit nicely. The rails were made from 3/4" square poplar dowels

The Keewaydin method of constructing a wanigan has notched handles to prevent the lid from sliding forward and back, but I ended up using brass box latches that were originally intended for a humidor project that never materialized.

In addition I wanted to emulate Rob's beautifully decorated camping boxes (see post here) with some tripping appropriate pyrography art. Pine doesn't shade well with pyrography equipment given the grain and resin content, so ended up using a single burn temperature for a basic scroll pattern for the sides. The poplar plywood lid is a bit of a better medium for burning and ended up decorating with a monochromatic camp scene. Wanted to emulate the style of wonderful illustrator Les Kouba and the image is a modified scence from Rutstrum's North American Canoe Country

Here is the final result...




In the end, I decided against adding more artwork on the birch side panels and just varnished the exterior of the whole thing for some basic weather protection. Almost all of my gear is up north with the canoe at the moment, so the wanigan is empty for now. But it is strapped up and ready to go...



Hoping to get some fun usage out of this wanigan along with the homemade camp stool made the previous winter.

Thanks to WCHA members Rob Stevens and John Fitzgerald, I received some more photos of the Peabody Museum's current exhibit, The Legacy of Penobscot Canoes: A View from the River. In particular, John was able to get some very clear shots of the famed green bladed paddle I've gushed about over the years...





As mentioned previously, this paddle was documented by Adney and Chappelle and features a unique style grip. It is a long and tapered grip style that has been carved out in the center, giving the grip face a distinct concave face. You can just make this out on the top right corner of Fig 72 in Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America

The Peabody Museum of Archeaology & Ethnology has a new exhibit featuring birchbark canoes and paddles. The exhibit entitled, The Legacy of Penobscot Canoes: A View from the River runs through April 30, 2016.


Their facebook page has some great photos of an interesting bark canoe purchased from Penobscot builder Francis Sebattis in 1912. It has the wonderful, graceful lines of canoes from this region and looks amazingly well preserved.  The single seat is also an interesting addition and looks to be woven with more natural material.





A search on the Peabody's online collections database reveals the following info:

 Canoe has a split-wood rush seat at one end (presumably making this end the stern) and 4 thwarts. The thwarts are mortised and tennoned and lashed with split root and nailed to the gunwales. The first thwart (from the bow) is parallel in form while the remaining three thwarts flare out at their ends. Inwales and outwales are secured with screws (and possibly nails) and split root lashing at regular intervals; the screw holes are filled with putty. (4 screw points are exposed iat the inwales, two screw points at the bow and two at the stern.) Wooden pegs are used to secure the gunwale caps to the rest of the gunwale assembly. There is a slot-head screw in the port side gunwale cap amidships.

Seats in bark canoes are rare in the first place and this is the first time I've seen a seat woven with such material. Might be an interesting project to replicate with left over strips of birchbark from a canoe build.



Also in their display is the green bladed decorated Penobscot paddle I've posted on many times before, including this recent post with photos courtesy of Bob Holtzman of Indigenous Boats. The museum's facebook feed has a small but updated photo of the blade's decoration  pattern.




I'm hoping to carve and make another one of these paddles out of Sassafras this summer, but life keeps getting busier and busier . This year's extremely harsh winter wreaked havoc to our home and we have some major repairs to contend with before my paddle making hobby can resume again.

Been too long since my last post. Hope folks are getting excited about the upcoming paddling season. Here's an interesting paddle from this Ebay seller. The paddle is an aged 71-1/2 incher found in  Maine. What caught my attention was the quite pronounced circular roll grip - would be nice to experiment with and try out.






The seller's description:

"Early canoe paddle measuring 71-1/2" long & 6-1/4" wide. It weighs 2 pounds 10 oz. This was found in Maine but is not signed.

In good condition overall. Some of the darker lines seen on the paddle have a very slight ding."