In 1948, the Peterborough Canoe Company hauled two elderly workers out of retirement and compelled them to build a cedar rib canoe for the city’s official wedding present to Queen Elizabeth II. When those two men finished the canoe, they destroyed the forms and jigs so nobody would ever have to build another one. And, for decades, no one had.
The (almost) lost art of cedar rib canoe construction
Invented and patented by John Stephenson in 1879, and later popularized by the Peterborough Canoe Company, the cedar rib canoe was the finest and most expensive canoe they offered. It was also diabolically difficult to build. Whenever an order was received, a mysterious flu would appear. Workers would call in sick, or so the story goes.
The first cedar rib canoe Reid McLachlan ever saw was a decrepit flowerpot my dad, Bill Mason, had rescued and “fixed.” It was 1985, Reid was my boyfriend, and I was concerned he was more smitten with the boat than with me. The unique tongue-and-groove ribs beguiled him, and soon he was telling friends, “One day, I’ll build one.”
We all thought he was joking.
For the next 35 years, he obsessed about it. Apart from the patents and some unreliable oral history, there was little information about how they were made. But there were surviving canoes to study, in museums and in private collections as far away as Europe and the U.K. Reid even asked venerable canoe builder and former Peterborough foreman Walter Walker for advice. He remembers Mr. Walker’s eyes widening as he said, “Well, that is a tricky business.”
Words of wisdom—and warning—from 75 years of experience.
Reid’s apprenticeship started with taking apart my dad’s canoe. It was too far gone to be restored, so he reluctantly fiberglassed it. As an experiment, he then made a replica model. All this time, he was scouring the market looking for a cedar rib canoe he could afford. He found a superb 120-year-old hull he could restore and copy.
It was time. Reid had never taken lines off a canoe, made a form or even built a new canoe, but after 35 years of research, he was ready to try. Within three months, he had made the form.
Next, with funding from the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association, he bought custom-made tongue-and-groove router bits and milled the cedar ribs. He then fitted the ash keelson, stringers and interior stems onto the form. Having professionally restored close to 200 cedar-canvas canoes over the years, steam-bending wood was old hat, but nailing that first rib onto the form was both thrilling and terrifying. It took 180 ribs, 1,500 copper nails, 360 brass screws and well over a year.
He would bend 10 ribs at a time, let them dry for a week, then ratchet them tight and nail them through the keelson and stringers into the form. Working traditionally, using no glue, he constantly questioned whether his skills were up to the task.
When he pried the hull off the form and finally saw the inside of the canoe, he was moved to tears. He’d done it! But the canoe wasn’t complete. Drubbing and clinching the nails; bending and installing the decks, gunwales, and exterior stems; creating the custom brass hardware, and the tedious sanding and varnishing were all exacting work.
Finally, on a frosty late-November morning, Reid made the 300-meter trek from his shop to the shores of the Gatineau River and launched the canoe. His dream touched water and became real, with no leaks appearing. A 77-year-old mystery was solved and a historic canoe reborn.
Becky Mason owns Classic Canoeing, where she teaches and celebrates all things canoeing. Reid McLachlan is an artist, paddler and occasional canoe instructor who is giving 5/1 odds he will build another canoe. They live in Chelsea, Québec.
This article was published in Issue 75 of Paddling Magazine. For nearly 80 years, the construction method was all but lost. | Feature photo: Becky Mason
