Pemigewasset River Trip

We took a trip back in June with some friends on the Pemigewasset River in New Hampshire.  The Pemi, as it is known up there, is a fairly gentle river that is known for it's sandy bottom and clear water.  Trusting in the scouting reports of friends that we were paddling with, we brought two wooden canoes - the lapstrake Charlotte and a cedar strip Wabnaki and DW's new Tupperyak.  We drove there on a Friday and stayed at a private campground right on the water in Thornton, NH.

The campsites were small, but clean and there were great amenities and services for campers.  The sites that our group had were literally right on the water.  Our plan was to get a shuttle upstream that was provided by the campground and paddle back downstream to the campground on Saturday, returning home on Sunday.  That's one of the wonderful things about the Northeast US.  There are many accessible mini-wilderness experiences that you can enjoy on a weekend.  At any rate we spent Friday evening setting up camp, having dinner and enjoying a campfire with old friends and some new ones as well.  Here's a view of the campsite:

Just beyond the canopy and the trees was the river.  This was the view from the campsite - an old railroad bridge:

I noted that the Pemi was a sandy bottomed river. Well, it was, until Irene came through last year.  Most of the river bottom was a bit "bony" in that most of the sand had been washed up onto the banks of the river and new channels carved out by the rushing flood-waters from Hurricane Irene.   While I understood that there was a rockier section of the river up near Woodstock, I'm not sure that I was fully ready for what I found.  When we finally put in on Saturday we'd gone a few hundred yards downstream and had to get out and walk the boats.  The river was shallow and fast with barely enough water to float the boats in some spots.  Some bits included some pretty fast Class I and Class II water with obstacles to paddle around.

I was particularly impressed with DW and DD's abilities to read the river and find safe routes through the whitewater stretches of the river.  What was even more impressive was the amount of water toys on the river.  Our group had brought squirt guns of various forms and some Stream Machine water blasters.  We ran into a group of Boy Scouts who were of a similar mind and were "well armed".  When the first overtook us, they pulled out squirt guns and began to ply streams of water in our direction.  They definitely regretted that shortly after.  Two of our group had the Stream Machines out and soaked the Scouts with 1/4" streams of water.  This went on for most of the day.

Timing seemed to be with us as we approached the end of our journey.  A stiff breeze blew up that portended some heavier weather.  Thunder and a bit of lightning appeared upstream from us and we managed to get off the river just as some sprinkles of rain began to fall.  Fortunately for us, the storm went around us and we stayed dry.

Dinner was a pot-luck affair with a campfire to follow.  Another great evening.

The trip was not without casualties, however - the Wabnaki has some new battle scars:

Be prepared for me to use this boat as an object lesson for some Tech Tip Tuesday learning to follow.  People often talk about how fragile that cedar strip and fiberglass canoes are, but I'll be showing you the wonder of how you can restore the canoe to like-new glory!

Camaraderie

One of the things that I really like about the class that I teach is that it is - by necessity - a small class. I'm limited by the number of boats that we can store in the barn we're allowed to use for storage. Because of this, this relatively small number of people in my class spend about 4 hours a week in each other's company learning a bit about each other.

We have a few "traditions" of a sort in the class that help build it into a tight-knit group. We try to work together when it makes sense. We have a 10 AM "Union Break" for coffee, fruit and baked goods of some sort where all the work stops and the tools go silent. I find that this is an important opportunity to let people ask specific questions of the teacher (me!) that all who are interested can listen to. They also have the chance to talk to each other about something other than the boat building process.

Because I have students who have different levels of boat-building and wood-working experience, I find that they share their experiences and that the experienced students show the others what is possible by example.

One of the more unique ways in which they build camaraderie is when we have a "double session" A "double session" is just that - we do two classes in the same day. This lets us get in that much more work as we only move the boats once for two classes worth of work. To avoid overwhelming everyone, we have a nice lunch break where we have the occasion to break bread together. Sometimes we just order out for sandwiches or pizza and sometimes we bring a pot-luck lunch. Personally, I prefer the pot-luck lunches - it's more personal than just ordering out.

Our class two weeks ago was a double session. Here are a few pictures of our spread:


From left to right - rosemary sourdough bread, salad, sweet potato casserole, turkey and roast stuffed pork.


Dessert was hiding just out of frame to the left. Behind the cups and silverware was a chocolate cake with bittersweet chocolate frosting.

Yum!

The camaraderie extends beyond class - these students spend time together outside of class and even drop in long after they've completed their boats. We can only hope to build boats and community at the same time!

The Canoe Gods and Penance.

In some previous posts, I've alluded to two B.N. Morris canoes that I've done restoration work on. There's a bit more story to tell about the first one.

The first Morris that I dealt with was a canoe that belonged to my Scoutmaster when I was a teenager. While I don't know what particular model it was, it looked like the one in the picture above and had belonged to someone in his wife's family. (The one in the picture is a reproduction from the Northwoods Canoe Company) The canoe had Mahogany trim all over. This boat was in pretty nice shape with the exception of the rot that seems to be typical on the ends of the stems at the bow and stern and the canvas was shot. I should point out that the B.N. Morris canoes had closed gunnels like in the picture below:


This allowed the water trapped in the canoe when it was stored upside-down to travel down to the tips of the stems and cause rot in this area. I should note that most people are more familiar with open gunwale canoes like the Old Town in the picture below. Water can come out through the scuppers created by the spacing that the ribs create between the inwale and the outwale. A little bit more to follow on this detail later.


My father offered to help him restore this canoe for a trip that we were planning in the summer. We started off by removing the rotten wood and scarfing in new sections of Cedar ribs, stem, inwale and planking. Some new pieces of Mahogany were scarfed to the ends of the trim pieces that covered the top of the gunwales and made up the outwale. We also had to scarf in some sections of new deck. Once the woodwork was done, we stripped the old varnish and re-varnished the interior. Seat cane was replaced and new floorboards (AKA "duckboards") were fabricated.

Now comes the sin.

I should note that canoes with closed gunwales like the Morris are very "early" designs. Bert N. Morris started building canoes in his home in Veazie Maine around 1882 and finally opened a successful factory there. It was one of the largest canoe companies with a widely known name until a fire destroyed the factory in 1920. After the fire, some canoes were still built under the Morris name for a short time, but as I understand it, ultimately Morris went to work for the Old Town canoe company. The canoe we were working on was both very old and sought after. Other than the small amount of rot at the tips, it was really in pretty pristine shape.

Right until we fiber-glassed it.

Fiberglass should really never be put on a traditional rib and plank canoe. It's just not right. For the most part, I have to say, "Forgive us, because we really didn't know any better." -the owner and my father didn't really know this at the time and figured that they were saving the canoe. I know my father had expressed some interest in re-canvasing the canoe, but the owner figured that the fiberglass was a final solution. (It is, but not for the best...) Worse still, we used forest green tinted Polyester resin. I can still smell the Styrene. Overall, we did a pretty good job with the Polyester and the canoe looked and paddled OK, but it was still the wrong thing to do.

I figure that due to this event in my past, I am doing my penance to the Canoe Gods by researching, building, and writing about traditional and semi-traditional wooden canoes. One of the reasons that I took a Cedar and Canvas Canoe building class at WoodenBoat School was to do a good job of restoring the second Morris Canoe that I've gotten my hands on - a boat I found by the side of the road with some rot at the tips and pink Polyester resin on the outside!

A journey of a thousand miles...

Doesn't always begin with the first step. Sometimes it begins with the first paddle stroke.

Birch bark canoe builder Erik Simula has just started on a 1000 mile trip around Lake Superior that will follow the routes of some of the Voyageur who trapped and traded along the Arrowhead Route in Northern Minnesota.


You can follow Erik's progress on his blog.

Good luck, Erik!