Cooke Custom Sewing

[Midwest Firecraft]

Local maker out of Lino Lakes, MN. Makes the best tarps money can buy. I own a 10 x 16 1.1oz Tundra tarp and a 10 x 10 1.9oz Tundra tarp. The stitching is superb, tons of sewn loops for multiple configurations, and a cloth reinforced center for paddle or pole if no trees available. Mine stood up to 30 mph winds no problem. He also makes top notch packs and canoe covers.

 

[yellowcanoe]

Lots of us have Dan Cookes products. My tarp is some 15 years old and in excellent shape. I have two of his canoe covers and several packs.

 

[memaquay]

Yup I have a tarp and four barrel organizers. Quality gear indeed!

 

[Midwest Firecraft]

Lots of us have Dan Cookes products. My tarp is some 15 years old and in excellent shape. I have two of his canoe covers and several packs.

I know Dan's products are no secret to the Canoeing community, but he doesn't come up on google for best traps and is rarely mentioned in the gear reviews by the national gear reviewers so I wanted to give a local guy a shout out. He's also a very patient canoe instructor as well.

 

[Odyssey]

Well designed and well crafted products. A grateful tip of my hat to Dan Cooke.

 

[yellowcanoe]

I can think of lots of makers of canoes and canoe gear that don't rank high in Google searches and don't want to.
Placid Boatworks
Loon Works Canoe
Cooke Custom Sewing
Colden Canoe
etc

 

[Midwest Firecraft]

I can think of lots of makers of canoes and canoe gear that don't rank high in Google searches and don't want to.
Placid Boatworks
Loon Works Canoe
Cooke Custom Sewing
Colden Canoe
etc

I don't know if I have somehow offended you by mentioning CCS or if I did something wrong by posting this, but I did a search and did not see it come up. I wanted to promote a local maker of great gear. If Dan doesn't want this than I apologize.

 

[Boreal Birch]

I too have a few things that Dan made, all of them very good. I still have a fleece pullover he made in the 1980's. I just returned from a month and a half visit to Lapland. I took one of his rucksacks as my only luggage, worked like a charm on planes, trains, buses, cars and on my back. Held everything I needed (I did do laundry regularly).
I do believe that Google charges money to get you to the top of their searches. Maybe word of mouth about a good product creates all the work some of these people need to keep really busy.
I do not think you offended anyone, everyone here has some his gear or wants some I would think.
Dan is a respected poster here.

 

[Boatman53]

Let me weigh in as a vender and see if I understand Yellowcanoe’s comment. The World Wide Web is very big, not necessarily a good thing. A shout out on forums like this is great but given a much,much wider audience he could be flooded with orders. That’s great if he or any other vendors want to really grow. I was I one man boatshop for 31 years. If a bigger job came along or I was way behind in the spring I would hire help till the job was done. I was always greatful for the help but always happiest when I was back to just me. A friend of mine grew his boat business to the point he had 16 employees when we would meet on the waterfront he often expressed that he wished it was just him and his brother as they first started. He had a 40K a month nut to pay, me I had $1500. In thirty years I never advertised except word of mouth. As a small business like mine and I assume Dan’s (I too have one of his tarps) one of the worst things to do is turn down work because you can’t fill the orders. I do still sell a product on line and that has enabled me to sell all over the world but it is not overwhelming as I ship about once a month. Anyway that’s my thoughts, small can be a good thing.
Jim

 

[Jim Dodd]

Dan's products stand the test of time ! I have a Number 4 Duluth pack I bought in 92 or 93, Dan's Hair wasn't so white back then !
It has been on at least 18 BWCA trips, and on 15 Project AWARE river clean ups here in Iowa.
Outside of a few light stains (water) It is as good as new !

To Date I have 1 #4 and #3 Duluth packs.
A thwart bag and map case
A Tarp
and a Pioneer pack, that Dan made for Bell canoe to market.
Thanks Dan !

Jim

 

[TrailBlaser]

I have a CCS canoe cover for my Sawyer Autumn Mist that I got in 1988. It has held up and worked well all these years with just one snap missing. Top notch gear that I have really appreciated having many times.

 

[yellowcanoe]

I don't know if I have somehow offended you by mentioning CCS or if I did something wrong by posting this, but I did a search and did not see it come up. I wanted to promote a local maker of great gear. If Dan doesn't want this than I apologize.

Where did that come from???? Why do you think I thought you did something wrong? Its just that Dan has said in the past when he came to some of the canoe symposia I was at that he was doing all he wanted( and that is before his loss of his wife Karen his partner to cancer. Google is not the only way to do publicity for small vendors of high quality items. Paul Meyer of Colden has said the same thing as well as Tom Mackenzie of LoonWorks before his passing.
Google extracts a price from sellers. Word of mouth works well for these folk.

A similar thing happens with large paddlesport shows. They are intended to make money for the organizers ( not to make a killing but not to operate at a loss). Nothing wrong with that; venues and insurance are not cheap. For example Darren Bush of Rutabaga runs Canoecopia and it is a sales event that has a significant overhead. Vendors must pay for space. There are quality paddlesport equipment makers that simply cannot afford to attend. Dave Curtis of Hemlock Canoe and Placid Boatworks are not there.. for a reason. ( they aren't at MountainMan at its various NY shows either). The benefit cost ratio to them is all wrong and worse when you consider Madison is some 20 hours west of the canoe works epicenter in New York State.( I expect heat from that last phrase but it seems to be true for small canoe works)

This site ( Canoetripping ) has a variety of benefits and one is to provide honest reviews of gear we like along with the rationale for that review. Dan and others are contributors here not to peddle their products per se but to be a part of the paddling community. If I lived closer to Lino Lakes I would love to partake in his weekday evening paddle get togethers with informal instruction.

 

[Midwest Firecraft]

Where did that come from???? Why do you think I thought you did something wrong? Its just that Dan has said in the past when he came to some of the canoe symposia I was at that he was doing all he wanted( and that is before his loss of his wife Karen his partner to cancer. Google is not the only way to do publicity for small vendors of high quality items. Paul Meyer of Colden has said the same thing as well as Tom Mackenzie of LoonWorks before his passing.
Google extracts a price from sellers.

Well, because that is a private conversation you had with Dan......I never said Google is the only way. I own a small business with no employees and Google is my lifeblood. I don't pay them or anyone for advertisement, but I know how to embed the key search words in my website. I can't think of any good reason not to want to rank high on a local google search for your business. When I am really busy I book out and if customers don't want to wait they move on. If that is Dan's wishes than so be it, but he never mentioned it to me.

 

[yellowcanoe]

Well, because that is a private conversation you had with Dan......I never said Google is the only way. I own a small business with no employees and Google is my lifeblood. I don't pay them or anyone for advertisement, but I know how to embed the key search words in my website. I can't think of any good reason not to want to rank high on a local google search for your business. When I am really busy I book out and if customers don't want to wait they move on. If that is Dan's wishes than so be it, but he never mentioned it to me.

I don't come here to argue with you. Dan is a smart man and whatever he is doing is what he wants. Not what you want and I have nothing to do with any of his business practices. Why does this thread even exist?

 

[Midwest Firecraft]

I don't come here to argue with you. Dan is a smart man and whatever he is doing is what he wants. Not what you want and I have nothing to do with any of his business practices. Why does this thread even exist?

What on earth are you talking about? I started it to promote a local maker of great products. You are the only one who is negative and unhelpful. If you don't even know the purpose of such post please refrain from commenting in the future.

 

[Matt C]

What on earth are you talking about? I started it to promote a local maker of great products. You are the only one who is negative and unhelpful. If you don't even know the purpose of such post please refrain from commenting in the future.

Respectfully suggest you disengage. Yellowcanoe has over 5000 posts on this forum, over 2000 on ADK forums and God knows how many posts on others. Best to stay positive and ignore all acrimonious dialogue and pontifications!

 

[dougd]

Let's be nice folks! It just takes one click to close or delete this thread.

dougd

 

[Matt C]

Let's be nice folks! It just takes one click to close or delete this thread.

dougd

Doug, where do you keep the "Rules" of this Forum? Seems like I saw something when I was added.

 

[dougd]

There was a banner with info on it and that had info about the site on it. That seems to have disappeared. It was there the other day but now is gone. I will look into that.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

There was a banner with info on it and that had info about the site on it. That seems to have disappeared. It was there the other day but now is gone. I will look into that.

Doug,

There is a “banner” rectangle that encourages new members to view FAQ. This appears, however, only when you are not logged in. It “disappears” when you are logged in. That’s how it is for me, anyway. That might explain why you saw it the other day, but not now.