After putting a new stem band on "the 60th" today, we brought down one of the three Kildonan canoes that are sitting in the dinning hall rafters. This canoe is a beast! In fact it is so big that it does not fit on the current canoe racks that we have. So right now it is on a couple of saw horses.
After putting it in the water for a while we saw that it had a heavy leak at the bow and a small leak at the stern, both where the keel is pealing away from the hull. Other than this, the canoe is in relatively good shape. Tomorrow I'm going to lift the keel off and run a bead of marine grade silicone and secure the keel back down. We'll see if that does it. Maybe we can get some campers taking it on trip on Sunday!
I'll add some pictures tomorrow.

The Final Product at the End of the Week

So at the end of the week, we have 4 canoes done. Two will be in service after the paint has a day or two to dry and the other two are 'in the rafters' waiting for the filler to cure. With 'Grace' being returned to the camp by Doug Ingram this year and another going home with him for restoration over the winter, Pioneer Camp will have at least 6 cedar and canvas boats on the water next season

The End of the Week Long Marathon

The survey of Pioneer Camps's wood and canvas canoes identified 4 boats that could be returned to service with only minor repairs and refinishing. This last week was spent getting these canoes ready for next year. It also gave camp staff and opportunity to learn some of the skills necessary to maintain their fleet. Chris Milne has started to develop a log of the work done on each boat and a schedule of future maintenance so that this can be worked into the camp's overall plan. This last process is perhaps the most important in the success of the overall program. Hopefully, the log will start to include the history and stories associated with each boat as well.

The first canoe was the '60th Anniversary' Jamie Thompson. It was fully restored by Doug Ingram in 2002 and only needed some minor repairs to the canvas and repainting. However, to save the original artwork done by Doug ment masking the details which took a couple of hours. Unortunately, cracks in the paint where the canvas meets the outwale has allowed water to get in and begin to rot the canvas. This boat will probably need to be recanvased in a couple of years but it is structurally sound. After a new coat of paint and reinstallation of the stem bands, it is ready to go back into service.

The second canoe was another Jamie Thompson that had been restored recently. The structure and canvas were reasonably sound but it needed a one broken rib repaired (3 breaks in one rib!), minor filling of scratchs and gouges in the canvas, and repainting. This is pretty typical work for camp boats and will become an annual process for staff at the beginning of each season. The work on this boat gave staff the chance to work through basic sanding, filling and painting. The canvas is in reasonable shape and should last for at least a couple more years. During the future recanvasing the broken rib should be replaced. As is usually done, the stem bands were removed for refinishing and reinstalled with fresh silicone sealant. Some of the screw holes needed filling in order to give the screws some 'bite' but this is to be expected. Chris Milne had a chance to see how good a paint job he could do. Of course, after painting there was a couple of hours of picking wayward bugs out of the fresh paint.

The third boat was yet another Jamie Thompson that need a little more TLC. A couple of years ago, someone had begun a restoration. The inside had been refinished and new canvas installed. The canvas needed to be re-stretched before filling and during this process, we discovered the ends of the inwales, tops of the stem, and tips of the decks showed the beginnings of rot. A careful application of epoxy and then thickend epoxy was applied and this should stabilize further deterioration for a bit. Ultimately, this problem will need proper attention. Almost all of Pioneer Camp's canoes have some rot at this critical structural point. As the whole fleet comes back into service, each canoe will have to be rebuilt at this point. Fortunately, a new storage plan is in the works which should reduce this deterioration in the future. Once the stem repairs were made and the canvas restretched, it was filled. Young Shawn Deerborne spent most of one afternoon helping with this process. The filler now has to sit for 3 to 4 weeks to fully cure before sanding and painting.

The final canoe was the most challenging. It is a Chestnut, perhaps a Pal, but is interesting in that it has a mast thwart and in fact the camp has the orginal centerboard thwart and mast. They may actually integrate this boat into their advanced sailing program. The canoe required repair to one one rib, some repairs to planking, sanding and refinishing the interior and outwales, recanvassing, and filling. Camp staff and campers came in to help as time allowed and by the end of the week, the canoe was in the rafters with the Jamie Thompson, waiting for the filler to cure. It will be back in active service in the spring.

Here's an update on the Chestnut Sailing canoe that Preston worked on 7 or 8 years ago. After a good sanding and varnishing by the campers, the hull has been sanded down and new canvas has been put on by Eric, Catherine and Chris

Eric and Chris with the new canvas

Here's a shot of Catherine Holmen stapling the new canvas on the yet to be named Chestnut canoe.
We are looking for names for these canoes. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to leave some comments! Some thoughts so far have been to name them after the virtues and after staff who have worked at MPC in the past.

This is the first canoe that I restored for MPC. It so happens that it returned to camp during the 60th anniversary celebrations, and since then has been referred to as "The 60th".

It was with this canoe that I really started thinking about our role as stewards of these canoes, their role in facilitating our oral history, and how we can individualize the canoes to aid our memories. It was with this in mind that I decided to do this two tone paint job and to add the pin striping. Mark Barkey was doing some intern work with me that winter, so I drew upon his sign painting experience and asked him to paint "Manitoba Pioneer Camp" along the side, just under the gunnel. This is the first canoe that I am aware of, that is labelled as camp's.

This is one of the Jamie Thompson canoes.

During Classic Girls II, Grace was returned to her home at MPC. Taking the opportunity, Chris Milne and I decided to present her to the gathered staff and campers after supper.

We took down one of the old canoes from the dining hall rafters. Chris spoke about the history that these canoes represent and our role as stewards of that history. He also spoke about how camp is setting this as a higher priority than it has been in the past. He asked the girls to close their eyes, then we switched out this old canoe and put Grace in. When the girls opened their eyes and saw Grace instead of the old canoe, you could hear a very audible, collective, "OH!" of surprise.

This is camp's Peterborough canoe. It is an old low end Champlain model. That big smashed in hole that you see was the result of the canoe being blown off of the front bay canoe racks in a very strong wind. The Peterborough landed on the arm of the next canoe rack, which impaled it.

This is my next project. While others get to do repair work on the canoes in decent condition, I get the "baskets cases"!

While technically not the wood canoes, but you can't tell in the photo.

Gunnel bobbing at twilight. Oh, the memories...

First Steps

The restoration of 2 canoes began today. Campers and staff joined Eric Gyselman in the MPC shop to secure ribs, sand and varnish these yet to be named canoes.

It is, and will continue to be, a great opportunity for the campers to get some hands on experience with repairing and restoring these canoes that have been idle for too many years!

These campers are busy sanding and varnishing the Chestnut sailing canoe. This canoe was restored around 2000 by Preston Parsons. You may remember seeing it, it was the only green wood & canvas canoe that camp had!

Below, you can see Eric "eyeballing" the canoe.

Just to get things started.

This is "Grace". Grace is an old Chestnut "Pal" model, 16' canoe.

Grace sitting on the front canoe docks, twilight and half moon. Can it get any better than this?

Here she is paddled by Chris Milne just after being presented to the campers.


Grace had a lot of work done by me, Doug Ingram. The old varnish was stripped, 3 new ribs were installed, a lot of planking replace, the hull sanded, revarnished, new canvas and filler, trim sanded to bare wood and new varnish, broken gunnel repaired, stem and gunnel ends repaired, seats were re-caned, new paint, and finally, Manitoba Pioneer Camp and the name Grace were painted on the hull.

Moirah Harvey helped out by painting the name on the canoe. This work also me the opportunity to share with her the story of how I met her dad at camp. She had never heard the story. What made this even more interesting, is that she was cabin mates with my daughter this session!