Hamilton Reef
05-26-2006, 10:52 PM
Enthusiasts share passion for antique wooden canoes
http://www.mlive.com/outdoors/grpress/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/114864633341520.xml&coll=6
Friday, May 26, 2006 By Howard Meyerson Press Outdoors Editor hmeyerson@grpress.com
MARION -- Chestnut, Kennebec, Thompson and Rushton are hardly names you hear anymore -- unless you happened to be here on the upper Muskegon River, where two dozen antique canoe enthusiasts gathered for their spring float.
"When I first started with antique canoes, they were as rare as hen's teeth," said Russ Hicks, 55, of Eaton Rapids. "You saw maybe one or two a year. But now I see one or two a week."
Of course, being a wooden canoe restorer makes a difference. The Eaton Rapids High School teacher has 34 antique canoes in his barn. It's a hobby, a passion, and sometimes a business.
Hicks also is the founder of the Michigan chapter of the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association, a national organization based in Wisconsin that formed in 1979 and has 1,800 members.
Antique canoe lovers are a diverse group of aficionados. Some are handy with wood. Others love to tinker. But all love the look and feel of a wooden canoe on the water.
"Wood is something you become a part of," said Bill Botti, a retired Department of Natural Resources forester. He and his wife, Alice, paddled a 1905 vintage Morris, one of three antique canoes he owns. The 16-foot canoe had arrived at his Eaton Rapids home in a pickup, full of leaves, dirt and debris, a castoff to be thrown in the dump.
"I'm a hobbyist and it took five or six years and $500, but it paddles so nice and sits up on the water like a wood chip," Botti said.
Although exotic plastics, fiberglass and composites dominate the paddlesports market, it is still possible to get a wood canoe. The venerable Old Town Company still makes 40 to 50 a year by special request, according to Hicks. There are also custom builders in the market place and two or three Canadian builders who will produce them to order.
But what draws many to the WCHA, is the idea of preserving a slice of the past and maintaining the special aesthetics found in antique canoes.
"We are drowning in mass-produced garbage," said Kathy Ingell, an occupational therapist from Haslett, who was paddling a 1910 Kennebec with her husband, Fred Gasper.
"Wood has warmth and is beautiful," said Ingell. "The lines on these boats are very elegant."
The 18-foot canvas over wood design was originally acquired by her father during the Great Depression. He and his brother restored it on their mother's porch. Then it was left to sit in her uncle's garage.
"I eventually ended up with it and had it professionally restored," Ingell said.
It was the unusual styling and covered decks of the 1920 Thompson that sold Ken Kelly of East Grand Rapids on the Hiawatha model. The canoe came painted with a triangular Native American motif.
Kelly, an ardent collector of antique canoes, said he wanted it the very first time he saw it. He had gone to a seller's home to look over an Old Town Guide, a classic canoe, he called "as plain Jane as can be." The seller just had acquired the Hiawatha. It was out on a table being displayed.
"I saw it, with its long decks and high ends and nice shaped nose and thought: 'No wonder he's selling me the one I am buying.' It really has a lot more style."
Kelly put a word in for the canoe if the man ever decided to sell. Not long ago he got the call.
"I haven't paddled it much. It'll be fun to try it," said Kelly, before he and his son Ian launched, only to later find out the canoe had a leak.
Antique canoes also come with varied stories. There is the one about the game warden, who chose a birchbark canoe over a modern Old Town canoe, because it was more stealthy. There are titillating tales of impropriety in courting canoes.
"We have retirees with vivid memories of their childhood in the old canoes," said Hicks "And we have some who just remember that Uncle Ed's canoe was up at the cottage and fell out of favor because it was wood."
The Michigan chapter of WCHA has 40 members. Some hail from as far away as Indiana, Illinois and Sault Ste. Marie
A common thread for most who paddled this day was a desire to get out and use the canoes.
"These are not museum pieces," Hicks said "We like to get together and use these canoes as they were intended."
Old Towns are the most common wood canoes found in the association, according to Hicks. The Maine-based company began producing them in 1898. The company still produces 40,000 plastic canoes and kayaks every year.
Then comes Peterborough, Chestnut, Thompson and Pen-Yan. The rarest, according to Hicks, are the Henry Rushtons that were built between 1873 and 1906. They have been called the Stradivarius of canoes.
"Peterborough and Chestnut were out of Rice Lake, Ontario, the cradle of canoeing," Hicks said. "If you have early examples of those, you have a wonderful historic piece used to open the Canadian wilderness.
"Rushtons hold the most romance. They were one of the first U.S. canoe manufacturers."
http://www.mlive.com/outdoors/grpress/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/114864633341520.xml&coll=6
Friday, May 26, 2006 By Howard Meyerson Press Outdoors Editor hmeyerson@grpress.com
MARION -- Chestnut, Kennebec, Thompson and Rushton are hardly names you hear anymore -- unless you happened to be here on the upper Muskegon River, where two dozen antique canoe enthusiasts gathered for their spring float.
"When I first started with antique canoes, they were as rare as hen's teeth," said Russ Hicks, 55, of Eaton Rapids. "You saw maybe one or two a year. But now I see one or two a week."
Of course, being a wooden canoe restorer makes a difference. The Eaton Rapids High School teacher has 34 antique canoes in his barn. It's a hobby, a passion, and sometimes a business.
Hicks also is the founder of the Michigan chapter of the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association, a national organization based in Wisconsin that formed in 1979 and has 1,800 members.
Antique canoe lovers are a diverse group of aficionados. Some are handy with wood. Others love to tinker. But all love the look and feel of a wooden canoe on the water.
"Wood is something you become a part of," said Bill Botti, a retired Department of Natural Resources forester. He and his wife, Alice, paddled a 1905 vintage Morris, one of three antique canoes he owns. The 16-foot canoe had arrived at his Eaton Rapids home in a pickup, full of leaves, dirt and debris, a castoff to be thrown in the dump.
"I'm a hobbyist and it took five or six years and $500, but it paddles so nice and sits up on the water like a wood chip," Botti said.
Although exotic plastics, fiberglass and composites dominate the paddlesports market, it is still possible to get a wood canoe. The venerable Old Town Company still makes 40 to 50 a year by special request, according to Hicks. There are also custom builders in the market place and two or three Canadian builders who will produce them to order.
But what draws many to the WCHA, is the idea of preserving a slice of the past and maintaining the special aesthetics found in antique canoes.
"We are drowning in mass-produced garbage," said Kathy Ingell, an occupational therapist from Haslett, who was paddling a 1910 Kennebec with her husband, Fred Gasper.
"Wood has warmth and is beautiful," said Ingell. "The lines on these boats are very elegant."
The 18-foot canvas over wood design was originally acquired by her father during the Great Depression. He and his brother restored it on their mother's porch. Then it was left to sit in her uncle's garage.
"I eventually ended up with it and had it professionally restored," Ingell said.
It was the unusual styling and covered decks of the 1920 Thompson that sold Ken Kelly of East Grand Rapids on the Hiawatha model. The canoe came painted with a triangular Native American motif.
Kelly, an ardent collector of antique canoes, said he wanted it the very first time he saw it. He had gone to a seller's home to look over an Old Town Guide, a classic canoe, he called "as plain Jane as can be." The seller just had acquired the Hiawatha. It was out on a table being displayed.
"I saw it, with its long decks and high ends and nice shaped nose and thought: 'No wonder he's selling me the one I am buying.' It really has a lot more style."
Kelly put a word in for the canoe if the man ever decided to sell. Not long ago he got the call.
"I haven't paddled it much. It'll be fun to try it," said Kelly, before he and his son Ian launched, only to later find out the canoe had a leak.
Antique canoes also come with varied stories. There is the one about the game warden, who chose a birchbark canoe over a modern Old Town canoe, because it was more stealthy. There are titillating tales of impropriety in courting canoes.
"We have retirees with vivid memories of their childhood in the old canoes," said Hicks "And we have some who just remember that Uncle Ed's canoe was up at the cottage and fell out of favor because it was wood."
The Michigan chapter of WCHA has 40 members. Some hail from as far away as Indiana, Illinois and Sault Ste. Marie
A common thread for most who paddled this day was a desire to get out and use the canoes.
"These are not museum pieces," Hicks said "We like to get together and use these canoes as they were intended."
Old Towns are the most common wood canoes found in the association, according to Hicks. The Maine-based company began producing them in 1898. The company still produces 40,000 plastic canoes and kayaks every year.
Then comes Peterborough, Chestnut, Thompson and Pen-Yan. The rarest, according to Hicks, are the Henry Rushtons that were built between 1873 and 1906. They have been called the Stradivarius of canoes.
"Peterborough and Chestnut were out of Rice Lake, Ontario, the cradle of canoeing," Hicks said. "If you have early examples of those, you have a wonderful historic piece used to open the Canadian wilderness.
"Rushtons hold the most romance. They were one of the first U.S. canoe manufacturers."