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WCHA Canoe Raffle

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Groveland, MA
A 17 foot Chestnut Cruiser, # 36 from Keewaydin will be raffled at the WCHA Assembly at Paul Smith's College on Saturday, July 13, 2013.

Buy your tickets at the Assembly!


#36 was made by the Chestnut Canoe Company in Fredrickton, NB in 1973 and delivered to Keewaydin Camps on Lake Temagami that year. For thirty five summers she was used in the Keewaydin tripping program. From the Rupert River in Quebec to Hudson Bay via the Winisk River in Northern Ontario, she has seen it all. Imagine the stories that this canoe could tell!


Saved from the burn pile by the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association the canoe has been rebuilt in the manner of the Keewadin canoe shop and is ready for another round of extensive canoe trips. All the broken ribs were replaced along with quite a bit of planking. New seats and thwarts have been installed and the canoe has been covered with #8 canvas. The canoe has been painted Hunter Green and the distinctive letter "K" has been stenciled on the stern sides and the fleet number has been applied at the bow, just as it was at Keewaydin.


Someone is going to be a very lucky winner at the drawing! Good Luck.
 

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35 years of summer trips across the Canadian Shield with young campers, and look at her now. Says something about wood canvas canoes and their ability to be refurbished many times rather than dumped in a land fill.

Now about the weight......:rolleyes:

Small price to pay for all that beauty and durability I say.
 
Raffle Chestnut

Raffle Chestnut

Actually, Robin, the weight isn't as bad as it looks - 85 pounds, about the same as a Royalex Tripper..
 
Hi guys, Looking at the second photo; what kind of lash up are they doing on the center thwart? I see the tump line lashings all right, but what is that second piece of wood? Given that it is a reconstruction I'd guess it's some original way of doing things but to my old eyes it looks awkward. How did they carry it? Then again maybe I'm spoiled by my Teal center thwart/yoke. The Teal yoke feels as good as it looks.
Of course that Chestnut is as it was in '73, so no Teal.
Just curious,
Rob
 
The extra piece of wood on top of the center thwart is a "carrying bar". These are added by Keewaydin to protect and strengthen the thwart while portaging and also when the crews are loading and unloading the wannigans. Sometimes they are dropped on the thwart, not so gently.

A wannigan is a wooden box used to transport food and equipment on canoe trips. They are carried with a tump line and they can weigh in excess of 100 pounds.

Also, notice the cording on the thwart. This is used to hold the paddles in place for portaging. Properly adjusted about half the weight is carried on the shoulders and the other half is carried on the tump line.

Yokes are cute, but, since the paddles have to be carried across the portage anyway, why not put them to good use?

SVL
 
Ahh.....of course! I completely forgot about that way of rigging the paddles.


Thanks, Rob
 
Pretty tempting. Its only about eight hundred feet away. But we have to leave Assembly early, before the raffle. Also out there is a Chestnut Little on the green. Its 14 feet. Sweet little thing! But we have another prospect out there. We came across a EH Gerrish at home that we hope to save. It was built sometime between 1882 and 1909 and has little damage.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/EH-Gerrish-Canoes-of-Bangor-Maine/157468754300962
 
Please post pics of that Gerrish, YC. Seems like each one is so unique with it construction methods and style. Many of the Gerrish's I've read about had some sort of decorative lacing behind the decks like a throwback to the lashing on birchbarks...does your prospect have this too?
 
Gerrishes were made over 100 years old and the stem extensions are gone. The seats are remarkably intact. Yes.. particularly early ones had lacing reflecting their birchbark heritage. I will post some pics next week of Ranco and Williams canoes too..an extension of Gerrish style
 
Now lets get down to our prospect.

Down the street folks were going to the dump with this. They thought about their next door neighbor Charlie and how he could work with wood. So it appeared in Charlie's yard. Over the last year he took off the rest of the rotting canvas. But is stymied now as to what to do next. Last week while we chatted at the mailbox he reckoned he would chink the gaps and glass and epoxy the hull. IYIYIIII! NOOOOOOOOOooooo.

I took some fast pics on our way out to WCHA. What is driving us nuts is the high stems, reminiscent of Gerrish. I have not gotten back yet to get more pictures of the stems which may have had lashing. (tomorrow we are waving money at Charlie). I have to look more closely at the thwarts for burned in mfr markings. The caned seats seem Gerrish. The thwarts ..not so much. The untapered ribs. The deck is not quite the Gerrish Heart. Closed gunwales came from many makers. The evenly spaced ribs rule out Williams and Renco.

Everything else save seats and stem shapes indicates JR Robertson. Out of Auburndale MA initially,was a principal on Old Town startup. I don't have measurements yet. Maybe tomorrow. The canvas may be original and looks sorta like New Haven Green. I find the planking kind of unusual..wide boards, but don't know much about planking or nailing patterns.











 
Is that an external stem I'm seeing? I've never seen an external on a wood/canvas. Looks pretty old, and very unique. Certainly not one to fiberglass. However, I will admit to doing that with a Tremblay. I sanded the hull completely fair, as it was very rough. Veralite didn't show a lot of bumps. Then I covered the entire hull in wide masking tape and glassed on 10 ounce cloth with epoxy, so the cloth never stuck to the wood. It's a great canoe, still going, lives on top of one of my wood piles.

BUt I certainly wouldn't glass that piece of history!
 
Hope you still picked it up, YC. That seat weaving pattern on Gerrish's & other copy cats is really appealing.

Any word on who won the original raffled canoe? Given its extensive tripping history, would be neat if the new owners went tripping with it and posted some reports here.
 
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Because the owner was busy hosting a wedding for a hundred or so, and spiffying up the yard., we have not gotten to talk. And won't till the end of August. I type this overlooking a wild Lake Superior and we go out tomorrow for two to three weeks,
 
Murat, the Keewaydin canoe was won by a couple from Piercefield, NY, not far from Paul Smith's. They are not real trippers, but, with a cottage in the Adirondacks they have promised to give it a good home.
 
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