Intro to Canoe Restoration focuses on the wide variety of skills necessary to restoring Wood-Canvas Canoes needing new canvas and structural repairs from heavy use & age. Rather than fully restore a singular canoe that may only address one issue, this workshop will be working on several canoes in various states of disrepair for students to collect a variety of skills for their Canoe Restoration “Tool Box”.
*Please contact us if you have your own canoe before bringing it to class. Students will have the opportunity to troubleshoot their own Canoes and come up with a step-by-step restoration plan, however this class does not provide adequate time & space to fully restore their own wood-canvas canoe.
This course includes 8 classes 6:30 – 8:30pm, Tuesday and Thursday evening 6/10 – 7/ 3 / 2025
Between the 1870s when more Americans than ever before wanted a boat, but white birch trees large enough to make birchbark canoes had become scarce, and all-wood canoes were expensive – and the 1950s when another unprecedented wave of recreational boating was met with canoes made from aluminum and fiberglass – thousands of wood-canvas canoes were built. Even by modern standards, these were light and strong boats built to beautiful and efficient designs. They were usually built of durable materials like white cedar and copper – so kept out of the weather, would last indefinitely. The cotton canvas skin – while rugged enough to stand up to rocky whitewater – was prone to abrasion, rot, or most commonly, cracking from too much paint, too little use, and years of hanging in the rafters. Today, these boats can still be found in barns or at yard sales, needing only a few evenings’ and weekends’ worth of “hundred-year touch-up” to be on the water again; to be an admired family heirloom again.
In this course, we will refurbishing wood-canvas canoes – one 16′ canoe of unknown age, by an unknown builder, that was found hanging in a barn (maybe the class will include uncovering hints to this boat’s origin!) and several canoes that have been donated to the school in various state of disrepair.
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