Recent content by Benson Gray

Nessmuk (a.k.a. George Washington Sears) suggested 'don't neglect the auxiliary paddle, or "pudding stick." as my friends call it ... use the pudding stick, and you can go almost anywhere that a mushrat can' on pages 138-139 of Woodcraft in 1895 as shown below. The full book is available at...

Movie Night at the Museum - Canoe Dig it? Saturday, September 5, 2026 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm CDT Wisconsin Canoe Heritage Museum https://www.wisconsincanoeheritagemuseum.org/events.html

The sound when tapping the hull of a canoe with your fingernail can quickly distinguish fiberglass from canvas. Fiberglass usually makes a sharp ping while canvas produces a softer thud. Canvas canoes will also sound and flex differently in the water although this is more difficult to describe...

Congratulations, the Old Town canoe with serial number 228314 and hull identification number XTC28314M80F is a 17 foot long Chipewyan Tripper model with aluminum inserts in the rails, rotationally molded seats and decks that weighed 78 pounds. It was built between August and December, 1979. The...

One of the good things about wood and canvas canoes is that they can be repaired relatively easily. I suspect that you can do it. The books at https://www.woodencanoe.org/books will help explain the steps. The forums at https://forums.wcha.org/ are another good resource. Most questions have been...

Howland, Maine has a similar project. The link below offers a picture and more information, Benson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howland_Dam_(Maine)

The foam canoe blocks shown at the link below have worked well for me on aero bars. I do take them off when not in use. Benson https://maloneautoracks.com/Canoe-Block-6-X-4.75-X-3.75-set-of-2.html

Every canoe that I know about which has sold for more than $90K was made by someone who died a long time ago as shown in the picture below. Living builders usually get much less for similar canoes as indicated in the following link. A high auction price usually requires at least two people who...

I have asked them that question and the response was that they didn't like how it performed in their testing. The prospect of buying their primary raw material from a competitor probably also factored into the decision. The sad reality is that the current market for T-formex / Royalex / ABS...

At least one person has done this with a short kayak as shown below. Benson

I casually review many of the new messages here to see if I can help. Your message popped up in that feed. Researching information about old canoes has been a hobby of mine for many years starting with Old Town Canoe in the 1990s. I've gotten reasonably good at finding information like this on...

The 1986 catalog at the first link below may interest you. The Pearl model is shown on the bottom of page nine. The Minstrel is shown at the bottom of page 13 in the second link from the 1990 catalog. The third link has a number of other Mad River and similar canoe catalogs. Benson...

A good start will be the three volume Canoeing series of books by Zip Kellogg. These are out of print but available from many used book stores. The links below show some examples. Benson https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/canoeing-one-maine-geographic_zip-kellogg/20313020/...

Nice one, the first link below has more details as you probably know. The second link has information about the similarities between the early Kennebec and Morris canoes. Benson https://forums.wcha.org/threads/kennebec-build-information-request.6450/...

What is the serial number? Benson