This is an article written by Bill Mason's daughter, Becky, about a cedar rib canoe her husband, Reid McLachlan, took 35+ years to build.
"In 1948, the Peterborough Canoe Company hauled two elderly workers out of retirement and compelled them to build a cedar rib canoe for the city’s official wedding present to Queen Elizabeth II. When those two men finished the canoe, they destroyed the forms and jigs so nobody would ever have to build another one. And, for decades, no one had."
The Canoe Builders Tried To Never Make Again
This cedar rib construction was an almost lost art, until one craftsman's obsession revived it
paddlingmag.com