Boat Type: Aticamic birch bark canoe
Builder: Ceasar Newashish (sp.?)
Model: n/a
Length: 13 ft. 10”
Beam: 34”
Date Built: ca. 1930-1950
Donor: Larry Zuk
Accession Number: 2008.025.01

GASNO GAO
Gasno Gao. Circa 1930-1950. Aticamek birch bark canoe – 13 ft. 10 in. x 34 in. 72 pounds. Made by Caesar Newashish (sp?) of Manuan, Quebec, Canada. I bought it in 1976 from an Indian canoe builder who was making and selling canvas canoes in the adjacent town of St.-Michel-Des-Saints. The Name is birch bark canoe in Seneca, my adopted Indian Nation.

The story goes back a long time. I have been studying American Native peoples foe many years and have a large collection of artifacts, clothing and other native crafts. I have also been making and using canoes for many years. But I didn’t have an Indian canoe! I knew Henri Vallencourt and have great respect for his workmanship and knowledge of native crafts but I wanted an Indian canoe. I had several talks with him as we worked on canoe parts. I studied the literature and learned as much as I could about birch bark canoes and contemporary builders, then started my search. After the Meet at Sugar Island, Evelyn and I would head up into Canada where we had heard they were making canoes. We went up one river that flowed into the St. Lawrence where people had said they built them. Upon getting as far north as possible, we were told “over there-farther East” but we ran out of time and had to continue the next year. We went to Quebec and asked around there without any success.

Then, in 1973, we took our most exciting trip of the Saint Maurice River. The scenery was beautiful as the river along the winding river a few miles south of LaTuque. Suddenly, there was a loud “BANG” from the back of the car and I stomped on the brake, thinking we had hit something. Glancing into the rearview mirror, I saw our gas tank lying in the middle of the road with gasoline pouring into the road and running into the ditch. There was not much traffic up there but about fifteen minutes later one car sped by, going north. However, as we began to think about what else we could do, a couple of elder strangers stopped and with Evelyn’s meager French, we negotiated a ride for Evelyn with them. On Wednesday late afternoon a tow truck came and took me and the car to the garage in LaTuque, took us to the restaurant to have dinner and to the motel. On Thursday morning we went to the garage and observed their putting the brazed tank back on the suburban. There were two of them working and three sitting around and watching and giving advice in a continuous babble of French. It was hilarious. They finished the repairs and sent us on our way north. They had been so hospitable and generous to us and did not charge much for all the work they had done or for transporting us.

At Point Bleue, on Lac St. Jean, near Chambord, the Manager of the Hudson Bay Trading Post showed me on a map where the canoes were made on Manuan, on the River Matawin, back west of where we were. So it was back home for another year.

The next year, in 1974, after Sugar Island, we headed down the St. Lawrence and then north to Joliette and then North to St.-Michel-Des-Saints where a beautiful birch bark canoe hung from the rafter in the restaurant and we stayed the night. Although it is a small town, they were well equipped for tourists because ti was a major snow mobile center in the winter. We got our directions from the people in the motel and restaurant and headed off to Manuan. From there on it was dirt lumber road, dodging the potholes and washed out places and squeezing over to the side as big loaded lumber trucks hurtled down the road past us toward town. About thirty miles up the road as we thought we as we thought we were nearing our destination, we began to see Indians picking blueberries in the fields along the road.

I got out of the Suburban and looked down into the gully. It was impassable but I saw a small sign about six inches high and a foot long with a crude arrow on it pointing to the right. We were in a field at the time but as I turned the car, I saw faint car tracks down a slope into a patch of small trees. We followed about half a mile, crossed an old low log bridge over the creek and joined our original logging road where shortly we arrived at a cluster of neat, but not fancy, one story cottages, like the old motels with separate buildings, but in the center of the village was a neat, rather small (Compared to most of the big churches of the towns along the St. Lawrence) Church!

A small man in clerical clothes was working in the garden as we parked an got out of the car. Top o’ the Marnin” he greeted us and asked if we’d like to see the Church. Of course we said yes and he showed us the inside of the church. Every wall, post and the alter were magnificently decorated with carved birch bark. We loved it! We had really finally got to the home of the canoe builders.

It turned out he was a Jesuit priest who had been trained in Boston! We made a generous contribution to the Church and talked about Boston for a while. Then we asked about the canoe builders and found that Ceasar Newaswish and his son were not there nor expected back soon. I think they were off fishing.

We returned to Saint-Michel-Des Saint where we spent the night and continued our Canadian exploration through Montreal to Ottawa. I had wanted to see the Rideau Canal and the trip down to the St. Lawrence River, seeing the magnificent, very high old locks, still in use, mostly by pleasure boats, was very much worthwhile. Continuing our trip, we proceeded to Gananoque and the ACA Encampment on Sugar Island. Another year without a birch bark!

At the national meeting of the ACA, on November 10, 1974, I was elected National Commodore (same as President). With all the administrative work, trips to meetings and National Championships, I paddled, sailed and raced, but there was not much time for exploring in 1955 and 1956 .

However, as Commodore, US Representative and Olympic Official, I attended the ICF World Meeting and the Olympics with all the meetings and parties included. On July 19th, I drove to Sugar Island and left my canoe for the express purpose of not having a canoe on my car at the Olympics, for fear of having someone steal it. I drove to Montreal and attended the Meeting of the ICF and the party that evening. Evelyn arrived on the airplane the next day. We had a few days before the Olympics, so, on the spur of the moment we decided to run up to Manuan just to see the place.

WE drove to Manuan on Sunday, picked some berries, visited the Father and the Church and found out Ceasar was back in Montreal, where we had started, at the Exhibition of Native Crafts! WE drove back to St.-Michel-Des-Saints. Before dinner, while touring the town, we visited a shop where a native made some white man’s canvas canoes which he was proud to show us and tried to sell us. Of course, we complimented him on his canoes and workmanship but we really were not interested. On our tour of the old barn and shed which was his factory, I spied a little birch bark canoe back in the corner of the shed and asked him about it. He said it was broken and he had to fix it. Knowing that it would be a long time before I got back there again, I examined the canoe and said I would fix it. “How much?” I asked. He was very reluctant to sell it because he was afraid he was cheating me. But he said “250 Dollars American.” Aside, Evelyn asked if I would be satisfied with this canoe and not be hot on the trail of another and I said, “Yes.” Someone had taken two of the original thwarts out and put in a canvas canoe seat which I wanted to replace. He said he would make an exact copy of the thwart and install it in the canoe while we ate dinner. After dinner we went back and he had put in a beautiful thwart at no extra charge. But I gave him an extra $10 and we happily loaded our Birch Bark on our car and drove back to Montreal.

So there we were, happy about finally getting our canoe, but with a canoe on the car which we really thought might get stolen. Just what we had been trying to avoid. We drove to the Exposition Center and met Caesar Nawaswish and we showed him the canoe which he said he had made “Maybe 20 or 30 years ago.”
We admired the Exhibit and bought a little model bark canoe that they were making for the tourists, which I still have on the mantlepiece.

Back at the motel, we asked where we could store the canoe, but they had no space long enough. So, from the second floor we put it out the window onto the first floor roof. And there, throughout the Olympics, we, and everyone else, could see out canoe as we drove up to the motel!

The story should stop there. I officiated at the Canoeing Races and we enjoyed the Olympic Games and Parties. Then we went back to Sugar Island where I performed my duties as Commodore and raced in the sailing races, winning the Cruising Class Race around the Island, All Outdoor Trophy, in my Dad’s old Willetts.

Then, on Monday, August 9th, we started home and heard hurricane warnings on the radio. Paying little attention, we stopped and toured the Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake and ate a picnic supper. At 8:30, as it got dark, we took off for home in the rain. Warnings were more specific then. Hurricane Belle was coming up the Hudson and western New England. The rain and wind increased and was getting pretty wild as we got to Albany. I stopped several times to tighten the canoe down. We were worried about losing our old Willetts and, especially our new Birch Bark, which had been so difficult to get. We also stopped at a couple of Motels, which is unusual for us, but they couldn’t squeeze us in. Finally we stopped at Lee, Massachusetts in the highway service area and slept in the car resuming our driving when the storm had subsided in the morning. A wild trip!

I patched the major split in the bottom and cheated with a little epoxy. Everything else was done in the Indian Fashion as I took our a couple of ribs and re-bent them, put in a couple of thin spruce splittings to support the injured area, bound in the new thwart with split, water soaked roots and also bound a broken gunwale near the end. Then I refilled all the breaks and scratches with the “Indian Duct Tape” mixture of boiled pine pitch, rendered animal fat and charcoal.

I showed the canoe and paddles at a race in Concord, where about 398 people ignored it and two people admired and asked me questions about it. We paddled it on trips with the AMC with about the same results. No one took the opportunity to paddle a birch bark that I offered. I dressed as an Indian in an absolutely pre-Colombian costume of deerskin, with decorations of a deer hair roach, porcupine quill, native beads and body paint, with a native basket and Indian paddles for a VCR introducing Concord’s Historical Sites This was shown to visitors in the museum at the National Monument. Also Evelyn and I dressed in authentic costume as a squaw man and squaw of the Canadian fur trading era for a Halloween Cruise on the Concord River.

My favorite was, on important occasions, such as the equinox, to dress in the most primitive Indian attire, sneak out from a secret launching place and paddle silently up and down the river past other boats, the celebration at Egg Rock (which is the confluence of the Assabet and Sudbury Rivers to form the Concord River, the Revolutionary War North Bridge and other places where people were celebrating then disappear. The “Spirit of Meskatequid” surveying what the white man had done to His River!----That got a picture on the front page of the newspaper!

I was the head of the 100th Anniversary Committee of the ACA and organized and participated in many events. On July 29, 1980, we held the 100th Anniversary National Class-C Sailing Championship at the Yacht Club at Lake George. On the weekend we held a canoe parade and Celebration to the spot where the ACA was formed and there is a commemorative plaque on a rock facing the Lake. There were about 30 canoes and Evelyn and I paddled our Osprey with a large ACA Burgee and Eric Wells paddled the birch bark.

Also, in celebration of the 100th Anniversary, I set up an ACA celebration with the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton and asked the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association to join us. On Saturday, August 9, 1980 we set up our ACA exhibit The WCHA registration was right next to ours and our boats were all on the lawn together. I had the birch bark laid out and Beric Wells, in full Seneca Costume of the period just before the Revolutionary War, standing by to answer questions. We had some races and other demonstrations including the traditional race between a sailing canoe and a St. Lawrence skiff (which was first held about when the ACA started in 1880). The next issue of Wooden Canoe reported on the event with no mention of the ACA at all.

The last trip I took with a canoe was with a group of about thirty people with a Conservation Organization and we were celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Lewis and Clark Journey of exploration. We stopped upriver for parts of the Lewis and Clark story. At lunchtime I talked very shortly about birch bark canoes and they all refused the offer to let them paddle it. The boats on the trip were mostly plastic canoes with two people and a few plastic kayaks. Getting back downriver they were in a hurry to get home for dinner, or something, and vigorously applied their meager skills to the paddles. I had to get up on one knee and paddle at, what to me was at that time, racing speed for over three miles. It is a very slow canoe with so much rocker that, paddled single handed, it spins with each stroke and I use a “C” stroke. I was tired.

In 2008, I gave “Gasno Gao” to the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton NY. You may paddle it up there.

hub.catalogit.app/8933/folder/b4d6bf30-072d-11ef-b078-412e6e68870a/entry/a1180e10-39dc-11ed-91d1-

Boat Type: Canoe
Builder: Walter Dean
Model: Racing canoe
Length: 20 ft.
Beam: 34 in.
Date Built: ca. 1933
Donor: Sebago Canoe Club
Accession Number: 2008.026

History by Larry Zuk, March 2011
Four man racing canoe, commonly called a quad. Made by Walter Dean of Toronto, Canada. Thee canoes were made by Dean starting about 1890 in almost exactly the came form until about 1950 when Canada and the USA changed to racing dimensions for all racing except the four man Single Blade and War Canoe classes which were not raced in the Olympics.

Originally, the Peterborough style of canoe was made in 16’ lengths and a few were made larger. Since the ACA was, and is, both Canada and the USA . the St. Lawrence River and later Sugar Island were centers of canoe paddling racing with larger numbers of clubs and competitors in Canada then in the USA.

Dean designed and built these canoes in the 16 ft model, called a peanut for one man and tandem racing and 20 ft. model for a crew of four, both a minimum of 30 inches wide, although before World War I, the best tandem crew in the club usually raced in the club’s quad. I am not certain, but I think the canoes were made first and the rules came later to define the measuring and keep people from making faster canoes which would then make the existing canoes non-competitive. These dimensions were established in 1897. In pictures in the 1980’s and 1890’s both the cruising style canoes and racing style canoes are competing against one another until World War I. (As seen in Tom Zuk’s Photo Albums pf 1911 to 1913 which I gave to the Museum).

Boat Type: birchbark canoe
Name: N/A
Date Built: 1856
Builder: Wabanaki Tciman
Model: N/A
Length: 14.75’
Beam: 35”
Donor: Karl Kandt
Accession Number: 1972.001

David Gidmark inspected canoe on May 7, 1990. He indicated that it was probably built in the early 1900s. No one is completely sure how old the canoe is. It is an Algonquin new style canoe, which is more commonly found than any other type of Algonquin canoe.
Skiff type stem – similar to some New Brunswick Malecite Indian types
Ribs are steamed, then shaped and lined up along the canoe’s interior. The birch bark is stretched along the frame, and spruce roots are used to tie it securely to the upper frame of white cedar. When the bark dries, it shrinks. The old pitch used contained spruce pitch, charcoal, and quantities of bear grease. David & Ernestine Gidmark replaced the thwarts, spruce roots and gunwale cape in May of 1990.

Boat Type: Canoe
Builder: Mortimer L. Threehouse
Model: N/A
Length: 192 in.
Beam: 30 in.
Date Built: 1899
Donor: Estate of Peter H. Clune
Accession Number: 2012.001

This 16' Mortimer Threehouse canoe "Owana", was built in Rochester, NY in 1899. Owana was built for George H. Clune of Rochester, NY. George was active in the Rochester Athletic Club and raced Owana in club events. The second owner was Henry W. Clune (1890-1995) who wrote about Owana and Threehouse in his 1983 book, Reminiscences of a Rochestarian.The third owner was Peter H. Clune. Her hull planking is 1/4" butternut over 1/2 x 1/2 " white oak steamed frames 3 1/4" on center, with mahogany decks, bird’s eye maple king planks and cherry gunwales. Her thwarts are spruce. The steams are natural crooks of Tamarack. The sheerstrake is cedar. The keel is most likely white oak, and has a brass keel guard the entire length. The fasteners are brass screws and clench nails.

Boat Type: Kayak
Builder: Folbot
Model: Tandem
Length: 106 in
Beam: 36”
Date Built: 1980s
Donor: Constance Patterson
Accession Number: 2019.006

This tandem kayak was bought by the donor's father in the 1980s. It has fore and aft wood seats with wood backrests. Lightly used, the vessel has been in garage storage for over 25 years and has never been restored. An accompanying double-ended wooden paddle can be separated in two pieces.

Boat Type: Racing Kayak
Builder: Struer
Model: Cleaver-X
Length: 204 in.
Beam: 20 in.
Date Built: Unknown
Donor: Ed Kattel
Accession Number: 2018.004

Struer kayak was founded in 1947 by two Danish cabinetmakers, Sv. Helge Kobberup and Gerhard Sorensen. Since 1948, 11 athletes have received gold medals in Olympic Games and world championship events in Struer kayaks. An adjustment to the hull of the Cleaver-X was made in 1996. In 1998 Samson made a radical change to the deck construction, making the body extremely narrow all the way from the cockpit to the stem. Other minor improvements to the bottom of the kayak were also made. The change

Boat Type: Kayak
Builder: Larry Zuk
Model: Slalom training
Length: 160 in
Beam: 25 in
Date Built: 1954-1955
Donor: Larry Zuk
Accession Number: 2008.014.05

This slalom training canoe was manufactured by Larry Zuk and was the first build from a mold. In all, six of these kayaks were built from the mold during 1954 to 1955. Mr. Zuk was a long-time avid canoe and kayak paddling and sailing racer, the founder of several clubs and professional canoeing organizations and the leader of most. He was based on Sugar Island in the 1000 Island Canadian section of the St. Lawrence River.

Boat Type: Canoe , Sailing
Builder: Larry Zuk
Model: Dragonfly
Length: 210-1/4 in.
Beam: 37-1/4 in.
Date Built: 1992
Donor: Larry Zuk
Accession Number: 2008.009.005

Dragonfly open sailing canoe designed by Zuk-Van Dusen and built by Larry Zuk in 1992. This boat was used to make plug for subsequent hull production; the Dragonfly hull design is the most successful open sailing canoe to date having won Nationals every year since 1992 (as of 2007). It was the first hull to be rigged for ACA class (Sail number 1000), also sailed in C-Class (#200) and Cruising Class.

Boat Type: Kayak
Builder: Larry Zuk
Model: S55 Kayak
Length: 163 in.
Beam: 28 in.
Date Built: 1960
Donor: Larry Zuk
Accession Number: 2008.014.01

$55 Kayak - designed by Larry Zuk. Larry would have folks come to his Colorado shop to build these kayaks, for which Larry would charge $55.

Boat Type: Canoe
Builder: Rushton
Model: Indian Girl
Length: 188 in.
Beam: 32 in
Date Built: ca. 1912-1914
Donor: Elizabeth Schetina
Accession Number: 2019.04

This Rushton Indian Girl canoe was made at the Rushton workshop, most likely by Rushton's son. It is modified from the standard Indian Girl design having feather lap planks and a smooth hull without the typical canvas cover, indicating that it was a special order. The donor, Elizabeth Schetina, reports it may have been made in 1912 for her great-grandmother’s 13 birthday, but the serial number seems to indicate that it was actually made two years later in 1914. The canoe was kept at Trout Lake, near Edwards, N.Y. The history of the family and the canoe is in the accession file, along with five photos in an envelope and a history of Trout Lake written by the local historical society.

Boat Type: Kayak
Builder: Struer
Model: Racing
Length: 17’
Beam: 21”
Date Built: 1967
Donor: Robert Nagle
Accession Number: 2009.008

Struer kayak was founded in 1947 by two Danish cabinetmakers, Sv. Helge Kobberup and Gerhard Sorensen. Since 1948, 11 athletes have received gold medals in Struer kayaksThe boat is all mahogany made in Denmark. The Hunter model is much lower than other kayaks and the wind drift is reduced by at least 10 %. In the middle the deck is flat, but it gradually passes into a more rounded shape which becomes higher and steeper towards the ends. This results in a very beautiful and harmonic contour, which is so well calculated that the boat can keep its course in a side wind, without any use of the rudder, and accordingly without loss in speed. The boat currently resides in the Adirondacks. The owner believes he purchased the boat from Struer in 1967, one of the three years the Hunter K1 was produced. ABM has a later model, Cleaver X, but it is in fair condition.

Boat Type: Racing Canoe
Builder: Walter Dean
Model: Unknown
Length: 16’
Beam: 34”
Date Built: 1880-1900
Donor: Dorothy Chichester
Accession Number: X2008.601

This is an early all-wood racing canoe, built by Walter Dean of Ontario. It is a low-profile boat, with a large deck in front to keep out the spray, but otherwise built very light. It is brass batten-seam planking over oak ribs and stems, with wide thwarts for seats. The deck is made of flat boards joining in a high sharp crown in the middle with a tall, forward-angled coaming. This boat is very complete, although the coaming is cracked and missing a few pieces, and one thwart is held in by a door-hinge. Varnish on the hull is coagulated, and the finish is mostly gone from the interior and stern deck. EVS08

Boat Type: Canoe
Builder: Peterborough Canoe Co.
Model: Cedar Strip
Length: 15’ 8-1/2”
Beam: 33 ½”
Date Built: 1935-1940
Donor: Philip Sharples
Accession Number: 2000.011

The Peterborough Canoe Company, originally Ontario Canoe Co, was founded in 1879 in Peterborough, Ontario. The company went out of business in 1961. This is a typical longitudinal strip canoe. Relatively thin planks are ship-lapped and laid parallel to the sheerline. Peterborough canoes also typically have many half-round ribs. Unlike modern strip-built boats, the planks of a Peterborough are spiled, or shaped so that the width of each plank is even with all the of the others at any point in the hull, so that the same number of planks can be used over the whole length of the boat.

Boat Type: Racing canoe
Builder: Walter Dean
Model: Peanut
Length: 192 in.
Beam: 33 in.
Date Built: Unknown
Donor: Larry Zuk
Accession Number: 2011.008

The Peanut racing canoe is unique with wooden batten seams and adjustable thwarts.

Boat Type: Racing Canoe
Name: N/A
Date Built: N/A
Builder: Walter Dean
Model: Peanut
Length:192 in
Beam: 33 in
Donor: Tom Uebel

No information found in file

Boat Type: Paddling Canoe
Name: Unknown
Date Built: 1881
Builder: Unknown
Model: N/A
Length: 7’8”
Beam: 28”
Donor: John M. Carter, Sr.
Accession Number: 2002.005

Documentation submitted by the donor claims that this is the original "Susan Nipper" canoe built for George Washington Sears (Nessmuk), a well-known outdoorsman and writer. This claim needs to be verified, as does the attribution of the boat to J.H. Rushton. A note by DJM 2/2009 concludes this is almost certainly not a product of the Rushton factory.

Boat Type: Canoe, wood/canvas
Builder: Old Town Canoe Company
Model: OTCA
Length: 17 ft
Beam: 34-3/4 in
Date Built: 1941
Donor: Bernice Douglas
Accession Number: 2007.003

1941 Old Town OTCA-model canoe, was outfitted and cruised for camping and sailing by Dr. R. Morris Philo of New Haven and Henderson Harbor, NY. During the gasoline shortages of WWII, Dr. Morris decided not to use his motor boats, despite doctors' rations of gasoline not being limited. Instead he purchased and outfitted this canoe.

With ingenious design for the 17’ canoe, she was outfitted with complete kitchen equipment, a portable stove for cooking and heat, a deck locker, suitcase compartment, a water and bug proof sleeping compartment with mattress and pillows, and a tent. Dr. Philo christened her “Luxury Liner.”

He kept a log book with photos (see donor file) of his journeys. He and his wife visited the Thousand Islands, Trent Waterways of Canada, and New Hampshire and Vermont.

In May 1983, repairs were made at McGreivey’s Canoe Shop in Cato, NY. The repairs were 5 ribs, 2 mahogany decks, rebuilt ends, three thwarts, keel and mast stop. Nothing was done to the outside of the canoe.

Boat Type: Canoe, wood canvas
Builder: Old Town
Model: OTCA
Length: 216 in
Beam: 36 in
Date Built: 1942
Donor: Jack Stopper
Accession Number: 2006.016

18' Old Town Sailing Canoe with clamp-on leeboards, rudder, mast, yard, boom, cotton sail and running rigging Shipping form is for Canoe No. 134156, May 28, 1942. Shipped to: St. Lawrence River Motor & Machine Co., Inc., Clayton, New York.

OTCA
Length 18’
completed Nov 22 1941
hull varnished Nov 24 1941
open mahogany gunwales canvassed Nov 24 1941
thwarts mahogany
seats second filled Dec 29 1941
finish rails Mar 17 1942
keel Mar 18 1942 fitted Mar 19 1942
o.s. stems colored Mar 20 1942
floor rack Mar 18 1942
1st varnished Mar 20 1942
2nd varnished Mar 23 1942
Color dk green

Boat Type: Racing Canoe
Builder: Steve Lysak
Model: Olympic sprint racing
Length: 204 in
Beam: 30 in
Date Built: 1948
Donor: Karen DiSalvo and Lynn Petersons
Accession Number: 2013.002

This boat is a 1948 Olympic two-man sprint racing canoe, smooth skin, decked on both ends, with "US Olympic" logo on bow deck. The canoe was built by Steve Lysak, and raced by Lysak and Steve MacKnowski. They won gold at 1948 Olympics in London.

The canoe is heavily altered from the original. ICF (International Canoe Federation) met after the '48 games decided to change specs for all of the boats. As soon as the Olympics were over the boat turned from a double canoe to a single. The next 20 years it was raced both as a canoe and kayak in national championships.

This Olympic canoe was raced by Steven Lysak and Stephen Macknowski in the 1948 Summer Olympics when they won gold in the C-2 10,000 meter event and silver in the C-2 1000 meter event. The canoe was designed and built specifically for competing in the Olympics. Lysak continued to race it as a canoe and a kayak in national championships after the Olympics. In 1952-3, he modified the canoe by reducing its depth, beam and weight to comply with rule changes adopted after the Helsinki Olympiad. After the 1960 Rome Olympics, this canoe became obsolete even though it still conformed to the rules as its design was no longer fast enough to be competitive.
Steve Lysak learned the rudiments of canoeing in 1924 while he was a Graham School Boy Scout at Camp Ripowam. By 1927 he built his first canoe and ranged the Hudson River from N.Y. Bay to its headwaters. Lysak and a group of six Yonkers outdoorsmen who banded together for many of these camping trips joined the canoe club in 1932. Under the expert tutelage of the late Wm. H. Bruns and the inspiring leadership of Harold Bruns the club prospered. The men brought many honors home to the city from Chicago, Toronto, Boston and Washington. In the 25 years that followed the club won the United States Team Championship 13 times. Lysak enjoyed a span of 21 years of racing interrupted by wartime service in the Marine Corps and took part in winning 9 of these championships.
Steve Macknowski began his racing career when he became part of the high school paddling program pioneered by the canoe club in the middle and late thirties. Before joining the club in 1939 Macknowski also prepared himself for the future with long camping trips on the Hudson Lake Champlain and up to Montreal. He acquired much of his early boat experience with the volunteer lifesaving corps. He won his first race on Tibbets Lake in 1939 and his competitive span covered 10 years interrupted by wartime service in the Seabees. He played an important role in the canoe clubs winning of 3 national championships.
The first important race of record in which Macknowski and Lysak paddled together was when they teamed with Bob Dunford and Joe Daniels to win the 1941 National Senior title in the four man single blade crew event. After the war in 1946 Steve and Steve teamed up again, this time with Mike Kulakowich and Joe Paretti, to win the same Senior National title on the Potomac. In the spring of 1948 they designed and built a racing canoe which was required to use in competition abroad. On March 6th they commenced a training ordeal that was to last until they won our country’s first gold medal in canoeing. The event was the 2 man single blade 10,000 meter race held on a rainy wind swept River Thames at Henley, England. The next day they captured the silver medal in the 1000 meter race. A week after returning home they won the national title in the 2 man single senior race and teaming up with Brother Al and with Bob Dunford they won the four man single senior crew title for the third time. This was Steve Macknowski’s final race.
Macknowski continued to be involved in canoe racing by promoting youth activities and managing Yonkers Canoe Club affairs. Lysak continued racing and in 1953 took up canoe sailing where he would win the National Championship 6 times in the open cruising canoe class. In 1963, he began sailing the International 10sq. meter canoe in which founding fathers H. Lansing Quick and Theodore Oxholm brought fame to the Yonkers Canoe Club in the 1880s to the turn of the century.

Boat Type: Canoe
Builder: Old Town
Model: Display canoe
Length: 7’ 10”
Beam: 1’ 4”
Date Built: 1884
Donor: Mrs. Sam Hoops
Accession Number: 1972.001

This canvas canoe, an 8' Display canoe, is possibly a salesman’s sample or child’s play canoe. The serial number of this Old Town model is stamped 95288. The Old Town build record indicates it was shipped in 1927 to Bolton Landing, where the donor also lived.

Boat Type: Wood/canvas canoe
Builder: Old Town Company
Model: Sponson
Length: 203 in
Beam: 42 in
Date Built: 1934
Donor: Maxwell Brace, Jr.
Accession Number: 1993.020

Old Town Canoe, Sponson Model, Hull #113920, imprinted Old Town label dated July 16, 1934.

The sponson canoe is an interesting variation that the Old Town Company offered for their standard canoe models to provide a greater margin of safety. The sponson model provided air chambers, or sponsons, that were integrated into the traditional hull of the canoe at the time of construction. From a short distance one might not even notice the air chambers that are incorporated into the full length of the canoe from stem to stern. Each chamber is located just below the rub rail on the upper-most portion of each side. At the midpoint the sponson is semi-circular and extends about 4" beyond the normal contour of the hull. At each end the sponson blends smoothly into the traditional hull shape and seems to disappear. The functional purpose of the sponson comes into play only when the canoe is tipped severely and the additional buoyancy provided by its air chamber gives the canoe the ability to withstand an accidental capsize under most conditions. If the sponson canoe does capsize, the sponson provides additional buoyancy allowing the cane to float higher in the water affording greater safety. The builder claims that both sponsons only add twenty-five pounds to the overall weight of the16-foot canoe.

Boat Type: Paddling Canoe
Name: Mohican
Date Built: ca. 1898
Builder: J.H. Rushton
Model: Ugo or Mohican
Length: 14’ 9”
Beam: 2’ 8”
Donor: Miller S. Gaffney
Accession Number: 1990.035.004

Canoe model first offered in 1885 and named in honor of Mohican Canoe Club of Albany, NY and modeled after one of their highly regarded designs. Planked with white cedar; sheer plank is spanish cedar as are the decks; keel, stem, and outwales are oak; ribs red elm; builders plate is on forward coaming; seats were recaned in 1988; canoe was revarnished (decks & exterior) by Mike Mahoney in 1988-89. Purchased by Miller S. Gaffney from the estate of Alexander Leonard, formerly of Long Rock Island.

Text from old exhibit sign: J.H. Rushton increased his product line in anticipation of the 1893 Colombian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. The Ugo model, along with the Igo, Arkansaw Traveler (Racing Paddling Canoe) and Ontario (Canadian Paddling Canoe) all made their debut at this Expo. Shortly after the Expo ended, a depression hit, and Rushton was forced to close his factory for a couple of years. Upon reopening in 1896, the Ugo became one of Rushton’s more popular offerings. The Ugo, along with the Igo and Arkansaw Traveler were designed by one of Rushton’s workmen, William Kip. When Rushton discovered Kip building one of these canoes, he asked Kip whether any of his canoes were good enough, and Kip replied “No-they are all too slow!” Rushton, being unable to swim, favored safe, stable canoes, whereas Kip frequently raced in (and won) American Canoe Association races. The Igo model, similar to the Ugo on display here but with a flatter hull shape, was Rushton’s favorite according to a letter he wrote in 1900.

Boat Type: Racing kayak
Builder: Larry Zuk
Model: Merlin C-1
Length: 154-1/2 in.
Beam: 28 in.
Date Built: 1959
Donor: Larry Zuk
Accession Number: 2008.009.1

Merlin C-1 racing canoe, designed and built in 1959 by Larry Zuk. Raced in 1960 Nationals. Only hull built to this design.

Boat Type: Folding Canoe
Builder: Link Manufacturing Company
Model: Linkanoe Collapsible Canoe
Length: 174”
Beam: 36 in
Date Built: 1950
Donor: Alan Vail in Memory of Jack D. Vail and His Family
Accession Number: 1992.019

Link Motto: “You can take it with you.”
Edwin Link manufactured the Linkanoe, a sectional canoe designed by Link and made out of micarta, a fabric/glue material which was a precursor to fiberglass. The Linkanoe was designed the be easily disassembled for transport, and consists of several sections which are held together by hooks and cams. The boat is made watertight by a waterproof canvas stretched over the bottom.

Boat Type: Canoe
Builder: Lakefield Canoe Company
Model: n/a
Length: 15’ 10”
Beam: 3’ 0”
Date Built: ca. 1930
Donor: Mr. & Mrs. Maurice Wilder, Jr.
Accession Number: 1981.002

This boat is a cedar strip sailing canoe built in Lakefield, Ontario. As donated, the vessel does not have the sailing rig or rudder. It was in one family for 50 years prior to donation to the museum.

Boat Type: Kayak
Builder: Larry Zuk
Model: K1 Racing Kayak
Length: 201 in.
Beam: 22 in.
Date Built: 1959
Donor: Larry Zuk
Accession Number: 2008.014.02

K1 racing kayak, built in 1959 for the 1960 Olympic trials by Larry Zuk, after a Max Andersson design. According to the donor, this was the first K1 built in the United States.

Boat Type: Sailing Canoe
Builder: J.H. Rushton
Model: Ontario
Length: 16’ 9”
Beam:2’ 7”
Date Built: 1903
Donor: Phillip Westcott, Jr.
Accession Number: 1975.002

This Rushton Ontario model is an all wood canoe covered later in canvas, possibly to prevent leaks. It is a two-masted sailing canoe with only a single mast and gear extant. A nickel-plated medallion in the bow deck identifies this canoe as 1903, originating from the shop of J. Henry Rushton of Canton, NY. The boat is equipped to sail with two masts, but all that is present is a single sail made of awning canvas on a single gaff pole. The canvas is extensively rotted and tattered. The boat itself is in poor shape as well. Almost all of the hardware is missing, and those pieces which are there do not appear to be original.

Boat Type: Canoe
Builder: J.H. Rushton
Model: Indian Girl
Length: 14’ 6”
Beam: 2’ 6”
Date Built: 1901
Donor: C.J. Sayles
Accession Number: 1976.002

Rushton Canoe "Pocahontas" is a canvas covered “Indian Girl” model built by Rushton in his shop in Canton, NY in 1901. It has a J.H. Rushton round brass trademark plate on the foredeck, also used for attaching the painter. The name Rushton is stamped into the very top of the prow brass bangstrip. Given in the name of donor's grandmother, Grace Inglehart Sayles.

Boat Type: canoe, wood canvas
Builder: J.H. Rushton
Model: Indian Girl
Length: 16’ 11”
Beam: 34”
Date Built: 1895
Donor: Beverly L. Roberts
Accession Number: 1994.009

This is a totally original wood canvas Ruston-made Indian Girl model, with cherry outwales and seats, including an optional Rushton folding seat. The canoe is named “Neeneemoosha.” The 1895 date is countered by a 1906-1907 date estimated by serial numbers. The boat was varnished inside and painted by St. Lawrence Restoration in 1994.

Boat Type:Canoe, wood/canvas
Builder:E.H. Gerrish
Model: N/A
Length: 195”
Beam: 34”
Date Built: likely early 1890s
Donor: Dan W. Catlin, Blake H. Catlin, Todd B. Catlin
Accession Number:2009.013

E.H. Gerrish was an active boat builder in Bangor Maine circa 1875 to 1909. He was the earliest commercial builder of wood-canvas canoes and one of the largest. His canoes reflect their Indian ancestry clearly. Their shapes and gentle upsweep of the stems are reminiscent of Penobscot and Malecite bark canoes. (Bond's Boats and Boating in the Adirondacks). JMP 4/5/2010 Canoe was purchased for William Seward Webb's NeHaSaNe Lodge located near Lake Lila in the Adirondack Mountains.

Boat Type: Canoe
Builder: Old Town
Model: F.G. Model
Length: 191 in.
Beam: 36 in.
Date Built: 1969
Lender: Benson Gray
Accession Number: L2011.001.01

This is an Old Town F.G. Model Fiberglass canoe in Breakout 1419-21 design. It was shown on the cover of the 1969 Old Town catalog and in an accompanying illustrated article. No information about the artist/designer is available.
The breakout pattern was purchased from a fabric store. To create a fancy design on a fiberglass canoe, the gelcoat is left clear and then an ordinary cloth fabric is placed in as the first layer before the fiberglass is added.

Boat Type: Folding Canoe
Builder: Edwin Link
Model: Linkskiff
Length: 14’ 8”
Beam: 35 in
Date Built: 1949
Donor: Henry Horwath
Accession Number: 1985.021

During WWII, to fulfill a contract with the British Government required that all war supplies be built within the British Empire. Edwin Link established a manufacturing plant in Gananoque, ON. Later on, this plant became the manufacture of the Linkanoe, a sectional canoe designed by Link and made out of micarta, a fabric/glue material which was a precursor to fiberglass. This canoe is a Linkskiff, like a Linkanoe but set up for rowing. The boat was designed to be easily disassembled for transport, and consists of several sections which are held together by hooks and cams. The boat is made watertight by a waterproof canvas stretched over the bottom.

Boat Type: Canoe, Dugout
Builder: Anonymous
Model: N/A
Length: 13'6"
Beam: 36"
Date Built: ca 1870-1880
Donor: Phillip Kranz
Accession Number:1981.001

This is a dugout canoe, a craft carved from a single log, in the manner of certain Native American tribes. Records indicate this craft was built by an unnamed man in South Carolina. The boat was most likely pointed at both ends originally, and one end was cut off at some point, most likely to accommodate an outboard motor. Metal plates were nailed to inside of the boat on the bottom, probably to cover cracks which developed as the wood aged. The bow of the boat is dry-rotted with pieces missing, at some point an attempt was made to nail missing pieces into place. There are several large cracks down the center of the boat, making the craft unsound and fragile. EVS 08

Boat Type: Dugout Canoe
Name:
Date Built: ca. 1860
Builder: David Shoppenagon
Model: Dugout Canoe
Length: 208’
Beam: 21”
Donor: Rod and Dot Taylor
Accession Number: 1995.009

It was painted green by the Burrows family in 1900 and left as found by the donors. The possible name “MAR” is painted on the side and is barely visible.

Built by David Shoppenagon (b. circa 1808, d. Dec. 25, 1911) circa 1860. Canoe was built for the Burrows family of Saginaw, Michigan. Canoe was owned and used by George Burrows’s grandson Lynn Moore Burrows (b. 1884, d. 1944). History of canoe prior to this, if any, unknown. In 1930s, canoe was stored at the Oak Orchard Yacht Club from 1957-1990. The Burrows family were members of the Yacht Club. Canoe sold out of family by Mrs. Blake to antique dealer Jim Wilson who in turn sold to donor Rod Taylor.

Boat Type: Canoe
Builder: Chestnut Canoe Company
Model: Guide’s Special
Length: 187 in
Beam: 33 in
Date Built: 1968
Donor: George Tillson
Accession Number: 1999.003

Chestnut first started in 1897 when Harry and William Chesnut imported a Maine canoe to Fredericton, N.B. The brothers would build and sell canoe models based on the original Maine canoe behind the family hardware store until 1904. The "first" Chestnut canoes were built when the family opened the R. Chestnut and Sons factory in 1905. The family was able to recruit ten Old Town Canoe Company builders to come work for them. In 1905 the family also received a Canadian patent on canvas canoe construction even though this type of building had been around for a number of years by this time and was being used by such businesses as the Peterborough Canoe Company. Eventually, after a number of law suits, Chestnut and Peterborough merged together to form Canadian watercraft Limited in 1923. Many of the canvas covered canoes, even those with Peterborough decals, were made by Chestnut. Peterborough would go out of business in 1961 and Chestnut would follow suit in 1978.

Boat Type: Canoe
Builder: Larry Zuk
Model: Cedar strip
Length: 16 ft
Beam: 35 in
Date Built: 1978
Donor: Larry Zuk
Accession Number: 2008.014

OSPREY. Strip Built Cruising Canoe—ACA Hull No. 12 March 2011
These canoes were primarily rigged and used in the American Canoe Association for Sailing, Racing, and Cruising (trips of more than one day with camping, fishing, and even hunting, outfit on board. All these canoes are significant, not only because they are old, but, because they are all National Championship Canoes and furthermore, represent innovations in the rigging, hull, or both, primarily in the Cruising Class and the ACA Class.

None of these canoes is equipped with any kind of mountings for a rudder or other steering device. All were intended to be steered by balancing the canoe and the use of a hand-held paddle.
See my manuscript on THE HISTORY OF THE CRUISING CLASS, which describes these canoes and how they were designed and used.

Osprey-1978 Open Strip Cruising Canoe, Sitka spruce with mahogany gunwales, stems and thwarts. 16 ft. by 35 inches. Laid up with no metal fasteners (no tack or staple holes, acrylic plastic with 10 oz. glass cloth outside and 6 oz. inside. Original launched weight 56 lbs. The gunwale, decks and thwarts were varnished but the hull never coated with anything but the acrylic resin. Comes with original 14 ft. Sitka spruce mast I made, 50 sq. ft. fully battened cruising sail made by Marblehead Sails to my design drawings, leeboard and thwart and one or two single blades used for cruising sailing. Designed and built by Larry Zuk, it is probably the first canoe ever designed specifically for open canoe sailing racing. Raced and cruised for 35 years, it never needed regluing, was only patched outside and is still in good seaworthy condition.

In 1969, I moved from Colorado back east to leave the whitewater and resume my sailing racing. I had rigged a whitewater canoe (the kidder which I also gave to the museum) and had six canoes sailing in Colorado but no racing. I also rigged an 18 ft. Lincoln with a 45 ft. tall battened sail. Also I bought a Sawyer Canadian, 16 ft. canoe from Lou Whitman which I used for cruising racing with my spare rig for the Willetts. I sold the Lincoln but sailed the Sawyer and rigged it for ACA and C-Class and we used it as a training Canoe for many years. When I rebuilt my Dad’s old Willett’s canoe and started racing at Lake Sebago and Sugar Island. I soon realized that the old canoe was not going to be competitive with the new tall rigs (but I finally won the National Championship in 2002 with it) so I decided to design and build a really championship canoe.

I read the only book on building strippers that I could find and, I believe, saw one or two canoes and decided that, in the book, there was too much of the process left out. If I were going to put that much money and time into a canoe, I’d be damned if it were going to have all those little tack or staple holes in it! I tried the soaking in carbonate that was recommended for removing them and it didn’t work. So, I fastened each strip to the mold with clamps and rubber bands and glued each to the previous plank. I have never used a metal fastener in that canoe for any purpose. It is entirely glued and is, without any repairs or re-gluing, in fine shape 35 years later. There is varnish on the gunwales, decks and thwarts but only resin on the inside and outside of the hull. I made a series of slides of two “strippers” being made and gave lectures, using the actual finished canoes on display.

In February of 1976 I bought some Sitka spruce and some mahogany from Condon’s in White Plains, most of which was used for spars but some was used for gunwales and thwarts for the canoes. I cleaned the shop and built a wall and tried to dustproof the shop. I varnished the Willetts gunwales and thwarts, worked on the decked canoe, and designed and ordered some sails. This was all preliminary to building a canoe.

Larry Morse, Phil Lemieux and some others were all working with me to rig their canoes for sailing so, we, together, were making spars, leeboards, mast thwarts and leeboard thwarts. My basement was a canoe factory! One of my notes says “43 hours shop work last week”. Those were my hours in addition to the others. But along with this, work started on the Osprey as on April 17, 1976 Larry Morse and I cut long strips of Sitka which were mostly used for spars but some for gunwales and thwarts. And on April 22nd my notes say “cut mold” and “design boat”’

The basic design was completely new and had been done. The canoe was primarily designed for small lakes with light puffy winds. It did very well, actually, in the hard winds and large waves at Sugar Island but as I grew older, with my weight of less than 145 lbs., it was difficult for me to handle. This meant large sail area, quick starting and less resistance at slow speeds, designed displacement of 215 lbs and light weight as possible. This was the first time I used calculus since college days. I describe the design as slide rule assisted as opposed to the later computer assisted designs.

Although the basic design had been made, now this was “lofting” which was making full size drawings for the mold forms. May 14th and June 17th still said working on mold. Work continues on my Willetts and the Sawyer that I was sailing. There is a box in my notes which says, “April 17, 76 first cut on boat planks – May 14, 76 mold started-
Remember, I was Commodore of the ACA in 1975 and 1976, and in 1977 still a member of the council, travelling to meetings, and I was racing the Sawyer and camping-cruising in the Willetts and we were making sailing rigs. But work continued on the new Osprey. I don’t have the details at hand for 1977 but the planking had been glued together and the glass put on and the mold disassembled so we could work on the hull. In January 1978, I was working on thwarts and in February and March sanding the inside of the canoe and putting on gunwales and decks. Sanding, plastic and varnish are also mentioned. On May 30th, I was “gluing mast Osprey”.

Om June 10th, 1978, it says “Launched Canoe Cochituate”. This is followed by a couple of weeks of sanding the inside canoe, varnishing gunwales and, also, finishing spars, leeboard, thwarts, and spray board.

The canoe and rig had been under construction for a long time because I work carefully and we were doing may other activities. As an illustration, let me tell you about the last two months. On July 1st and 2nd I raced at Sebago in the Ladybug and was 2nd in one race and 5th overall. On July 3rd we took a local river cruise, on the 8th and 9th a sailing cruise to Beale Island, Maine and on the 15th, sailed in the decked canoe Eastern IC Championships at Ram Island in Buzzards Bay. On July 22nd, started packing and spent from the 24th to the 28th at my folks on Chesapeake Bay with a trip to see Ben Fuller at St. Michaels. Then spent the 29th and 30th at the C-Class Nationals at Oceanport, New Jersey. On the way home, I picked up, with my trailer, a decked canoe at Danny’s and another at Lou Whitman’s for the fellows in Dayton.

On Monday, July 30th, we had a National Council meeting at Sebago and on August 1st, Evelyn and I flew to Honolulu on our trip to Hawaii and Alaska to visit our Daughter, returning on August 24th. On Saturday, August 26th, raced the Eastern C-Class Championships at Bowman’s and I sailed the Osprey with its cruising rig against the bigger sails and rudders, getting 4thout of ten canoes.

It took a long time, building from April 17, 1976 to August 28, 1978-two years and four months. The Osprey was designed and built to win Cruising Class Sailing races on Lake Sebago and on its 5th day of sailing, it did!

I won the Cruising Trophy at Sugar Island in 1979 and in 1980 won two of the three races but because of the scoring of the time (with extra points for the windward-leeward race) Joe Klecka got first I was second, and Gordon Miller was third. And I beat those big fellows in a heavy wind! Although the canoe was allowed 50 sq. ft. under the cruising rules, I sailed it, frequently with the smaller ACA Class Sail, winning the National Championship for ACA Class, Tom Zuk Trophy, at Sugar in 1985. In 19982 the ACA Class became a National Class and I had designed it so that the sail could be used on most canoes in the Cruising Class and C-Class as well.

In 1983, I won the combined sailing-paddling race for the ACA’s oldest race, The Record, for which the Admiralty Trophy is awarded but Steve Clark in an illegal decked canoe beat me for the overall series. At age 61, second was not too bad. But the following year, 1984, I won the paddling, sailing and the combined races, to win the ACA’s oldest competition on it’s 100th Anniversary! The canoe won many races for 15 years from 1978, with both the big cruising sail and the ACA Class Sail, every trophy for the Cruising Class and ACA Class, until 1992 when I designed, built and sailed the Dragonfly.

The Osprey was only used for camping cruising trips with the ACA Class Sail a few times. It has plenty of space with its wide beam and is very good for this purpose but I used the glass Sawyer and the old Willetts more for those trips.

In 2002 I loaned it to Dave Sherman to sail at Sebago. They thought I loaned it to the Division. So, Tom Uebel, who had been off sailing for several years because of his lung problems, decided to sail it. I won the Lady Bug but he beat me in the Nationals. So the 2003 National Championship was its last race, so far, and I still think it is the fastest light wind Cruising Class Canoe. The computer testing that we did, substantiated this.

At faster speeds or with the small ACA Class sail, the Dragonfly is faster. The Dragonfly was computer-assisted design.

Partly to make certain that no one else borrowed it and beat me in a race, I gave the Osprey to the Antique Boat Museum in 2008.

Boat Type: canoe, cedar rib
Builder: Peterborough Canoe Company
Model: n/a
Length: 16’
Beam: 32”
Date Built: ca. 1909
Donor: Larry Zuk
Accession Number: 2008.014.03

MYSTIC Larry Zuk March 2011

CANOES USED FOR SAILING
These canoes were primarily rigged and used in the American Canoe Association for Racing and Cruising (trips of more than one day with camping, fishing, and even hunting, outfit on board). All these canoes are significant, not only because they are old, but because they are all National Championship Canoes and, furthermore, represent innovations in rigging, hull, or both, primarily in the Cruising Class and the ACA Class.

None of these canoes is equipped with any kind of mountings for a rudder or other steering device. All were intended to be steered by balancing the canoe ad the use of hand-held paddle. See my manuscript on the history of the cruising class, which describes these canoes and how they were developed and used.
MYSTIC—16 ft x 32 in. open style cruising canoe. Used for cruising by sail or paddle with one or two people, paddling racing with one or two people with single and double blades and “open canoe’ sailing racing usually with one person.

This canoe has with it the original mast, boom and fittings, leeboard and fitting to mount the leeboard on the canoe, the old unusable sail, a Dacron copy of the original sail made by Mrs. Harm, the second owner of the canoe, and a cut Dacron sail which I used to sail and race the canoe 1993-2002. Also there are two single blade paddles, originally with the canoe circa 1910, and a double-bladed paddle with which Tom Zuk won the paddling trophy at Sugar Island in 1913.
I stood knee deep in the water, slid into the bottom of my canoe, sailed off Canoe Beach on Sugar Island and was magically transported back almost a hundred years to 1910, when this canoe first floated these same waters! Same tree I dodge so my sail won’t get caught-I’ve been doing that myself for about 70 years- and as my sail gently fills, watch that my leeboard doesn’t hit that rock sticking up from the sandy bottom. Only a blow directly from the north is strong here in Headquarters Bay. Over on my left is the old pier where the steamboat that services the Islands drops off women, children, camp outfits, food and supplies from Clayton-I was carried onto the Island the first time on 1923. I can remember the steamer and pier from the 30’s and the big old black pilings can still be seen twenty feet down on the bottom.

Now I am out on the river and I see that old tug pushing a pair of barges down the Gananoque Channel loaded with timber or iron ore for Montreal and the other smaller steamer carrying farm products to Quebec? That rich old skipper is proudly guiding his steam yacht between the islands to his big Summer Estate and another fine big sailing, ketch rigged yacht is running strongly down river on the brisk, southwest breeze. Those little boats, being rowed or sailed out are St. Lawrence skiffs with farmers bringing fresh milk, vegetables, and meat to the campers on the Island- I can remember them from the thirties, honking their horns as my mother grabbed her pack and bucket and we climbed down the rocks to get our fresh camp food to add to the canned food we had brought and the fish we caught. And there are two sailing canoes coming out with newly arrived campers soon to be racing here!


I sailed around the race course and looked back at Sugar Island, Old Squaw Island and Island 47. They had changed very little and would not change much, except for the intrusion of a few small cabins, in the 88 years (so far) that I have been going there.

I pointed close into Headquarters Bay and took a few paddle strokes back into reality! As I pulled my canoe up onto the meadow amongst sailing dinghies, motor boats- but still mostly canoes and kayaks- shining in their fiberglass and epoxy painted skins- including a few I had made myself, I looked back across the river. There was a big freighter coming out of Gan, large motorized yachts over toward Gordon Island, beautiful big sailing yachts running downriver and noisy motorboats and jet skis buzzing around! The two sailing canoes had zipped into New York Bay as they had back then and here was Mystic just as she had been in 1910.

This canoe was a special order from the Peterborough Canoe Company in Ontario, Canada. At this time, I have evidence that it was a special design by Farnham Dorsey and that he specified its construction. It has thwart-shipped planking on the outside over long thin strips the full length of the canoe and some ribbing inside. The outsides planking, or “ribs”, are fastened to each other with mortise and tenon joints. This was uncommon even in those days, compared to the longitudinal lapped planking outside over narrow ribs inside, and is designated by the letter “A” in the number on the inside.


Remember this canoe had to be ordered by mail, built, and packed and sent by railroad from Peterborough to Gananoque. There was a man in Gananoque who did some work on the canoes for the ACA people and he may have put the special sailing rig on the canoe for Dorsey. The sail was made in England.
Dorsey had to go by rail from New York or Boston to Clayton, New York and then by ferry to Sugar Island then to Gananoque by ferry of another canoe to pick up his canoe. On departure, he had to check it through the customs official on the Island, sail it to Clayton and then ship it by rail to New York and by wagon (probably) to the canoe club. Think how much easier this now-a-days!
Dorsey was a man who apparently was financially well off and a prominent canoe sailor. (See my History of the Cruising Class) he was in close competition with George Douglass. An article written by Dudley Murphy stated that he was a newcomer to Winchester in 2001 <1901?) and that year won the decked canoe, Sailing Trophy, at Sugar Island with a new full formed, draft sail as opposed to the batwing sails of the time. So we know he was an innovator.

He won the Decked Sailing Trophy in 1901, the Open Canoe championship in 1909, 1910 and 1913, and many races before and after that, with most of the sailors of that time, he also competed in paddling races, novelty events and canoe tilting. We know Dorsey sailed an open canoe named Sideboard, and a decked canoe named Fly and won the Open Canoe Trophy with a canoe named Emerald. I don’t think he changed the name of one of those canoes. Rather, I think that he thought, like the rest of us, “If I had a better canoe, I could really beat these fellows!” and ordered this new canoe sometime between 1909 and 1910. He continues to win the Championship until 1913. The letter I received from Mrs. Harm, the woman to whom Dorsey gave the canoe, affirms that he won the Championship with it and raced it for three years after which it was considered a “freak” and “outlawed”. (The canoe and its special rig were totally within the rules then and still are. The Peterborough Canoe Company changed it numbers so many times that no one seems to be able to confirm when it was built.

The canoe has its own special way of hoisting and lowering its rig as required by the rules. The whole mast is pivoted in a rotating thwart and is moved from horizontal to vertical, allowing the sail to be a sleeve sail (the earliest one I have encountered on a canoe) There is also a specially designed fixture for holding the lee board which fastens to the thwart and allows the lee board to be easily adjusted with the foot from the inside of the canoe as so many of us like to do.
The metal fittings for this had to be designed and specially cast just for this canoe.

Dorsey sailed both decked canoes and open canoes on the Hudson River and was listed as a life member of the Knickerbocker Canoe Club, but he also sailed with Dudley Murphey and Paul Butler at the Winchester Boat Club on Mystic Lake (which has been my home lake for the past 38 years and I have sailed Mystic there}. Could “Mystic” be named after this Lake?

Dorsey continued to attend the Meet at Sugar Island until about 1930 and knew me as a child. At that time he was back in New York and Dorothy Atkinson asked him if she could use his old canoe and he gave it to her. She used it on Lake Erie and on the Finger Lakes (A letter from Dorsey in 1930 is attached to this history.). Dorothy Atkinson Harm wrote the ACA in 1991 seeking to donate the canoe to be preserved. The A.C.A. office, in one of its most erudite moments, passed the letter on to me. I answered the letter and after a series of interesting letters and phone calls, arranged for the canoe to be specially packed and delivered to me (for which I pad $500 of my own money). I promised to exhibit the canoe and put it in a museum. Some drawings of the rigging and my measurement of the original sail are attached.

I rigged the canoe, did some minor repairs, had a Dacron sail cut to almost the same dimensions as the original sail, and sailed it at various functions. The canoe, when I got it, weighed 72 pounds, which is about average for a 16 ft. Peterborough. To help me with carrying it around, I took out the floorboards, which got it down to 68 pounds, but when I soaked it enough to stop most of the leaking, it was over 70 again. The rig seemed very fragile to me and I was anticipating trouble when the first hard puff hit me. The little old canoe just nestled down, tipped very little and accelerated with the puff. Very easy to sail!
I sailed Mystic from 1993 until 2003, exhibiting it at Blue Mountain Lake and other places and raced it in the Ladybug Trophy in 2002 and got second! (Later that year won the Nationals in the 1935 Willetts), showing that the old canoes performed very favorably against today’s sophisticated, tall-masted rigs! I also sailed it at Sugar Island for the 100th Anniversary in the “Antique Canoe Parade”. In fact it was the antique boat parade! Shirley Proctor showed up with Dudley Murphy’s 1903 sailing canoe, Banshee, later.

It is so hard to believe this that I almost left it out. The only damage to the canoe occurred when it was lying overturned, well up from the beach, among other craft at Canoe Beach during the 2003 encampment.

Pictures of the canoe are attached and I will find more and add them to the report.

On July 25, 2008 I took Mystic to the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, New York, very near the pier where she first entered the U.S.A. nearly 100 years ago, around 1910

Boat Type: Canoe
Builder: Plycraft
Model: Caroline
Length: 16’
Beam: 30”
Date Built: 1946
Donor: William B. Coolidge
Accession Number: 1994.021

The Caroline was built in 1946 by the Plycraft Company in Montreal, Canada, using WWII technology to build canoes of molded plywood, possibly Canadian maple. The hull number, inside the keel, fore and aft, is 405.

The boat was restored by Brad Coolidge in the mid-1980s. The chief structural damage restored was a break in the plywood on the bottom, aft of amidships. Mr. Coolidge removed a metal plate previously used to cover the break, sanded a shallow recess, and installed a thin strip of mahogany that was epoxied and faired off. Epoxy and fiberglass cloth were used to cover over a break in the port gunwale. The whole hull was stripped and refinished inside and out. The original painted canvas mats glued down at the bow and stern paddlers’ seats were replaced by neoprene. Mahogany slats replaced lost caning.

Boat Type: Canoe
Builder: Canadian Canoe Company
Model: n/a
Length: 16” 1”
Beam: 2’ 8”
Date Built: 1914
Donor: Gordon “Sandy” Douglass
Accession Number: 1980.001

Constructed in the batten-seam wide-board style that was developed in the Peterborough Ontario region in the 1870s. The builder’s name is on cover plates for thwart ends. This canoe has 4 white cedar planks per side and the seams are covered with raised wood battens inserted between the ribs. According to the donor, she was built in 1914. Douglass sailed this canoe at the 1935 ACA meet at Sugar Island, where he won the Open Class sailing canoe race for both decked and open canoes. He went on to design some other very well-known sailing craft, including the Thistle One-Design, Highlander, and Flying Scot One-Design sail boats.

Boat Type: Birchbark Canoe
Builder: Unknown
Model: N/A
Length: 13'2" Beam: 39"
Date Built: Unknown
Donor: George Hale Smith
Accession Number: 1997.062

The history of the canoe passed down through the donor's family: "the canoe was found awash in the 1840s on the southern shore of Black River Bay. Presumably, the occupant(s) had been caught in a storm and lost overboard, the canoe then drifted into shore. At the time, Elisha Camp owned a farm on Catfish Point (Catfish Point is shown as Storr's Point at the Dexter end of Black River Bay, on cart #14802) and it was on the shore of Catfish Point that the canoe was found. The canoe was brought to the house and has been in the attic ever since, except for one brief excursion. My Grandfather thought it would be a good idea to see if it still floated. Somewhere around 1910, trying to get it out of the attic, it was dropped. Hence the broken bow and back to the attic it went."

This is a good example of the relatively advanced birchbark canoes made by Native Americans and used by them as well as American outdoorsmen and explorers in the 19th century. It is made of wide, thin strips of wood bent inside a birchbark shell, with thin shakes of wood in between. Gunnels and thwarts hold the sheerlines in shape, and the whole is tied together with caning or spruce roots. This was the precursor to the wood-canvas canoe, where canvas takes the place of birchbark and the wooden hull is made first, making use of mechanical fasteners throughout. The boat is relatively complete, though one end is split open and missing its stem. EVS 08

Ferdy Goode believes this to be an Ojibway canoe. Note the birch bark shims on the rib tips that the builder used to tighten the fit. DJM 3/2009

Boat Type: Canoe
Builder: Peterborough Canoe Company
Model: Backpacker canoe
Length: 15‘
Beam: 34”
Date Built: Mid-1950s
Donor: Ray Tangent
Accession Number: 2013.008

This canoe is a Red Lite Lift wood-canvas boat built in the mid-1950s. The light weight was intended to make it a canoe functional for backpacking and portage.
A collection of documents and photographs has been donated by Ray Tangent and those materials are archived in a separate collection.

Boat Type: Birchbark Canoe
Builder:
Model: Algonquin Style
Length: 12’
Beam: 2’7”
Date Built: ca. 1890
Donor: Mrs. Dean Boyd
Accession Number: 1973.001

This birchbark canoe was built by the canoe maker of the Onondaga Nation for Mr. George Dean, the father of the donor as verbally verified by Louis deA. Gimbrede of Westminster Park, N.Y. Characteristics of the birchbark canoe include a narrow bottom, flaring sides, and high ends. They are built in the ground, from the outside in. The canoe was restored by David and Ernestine Gidmark in 1990. The restoration included bringing the canoe back into its natural shape, refitting the thwarts which have become “unsewn” to the gunnels, refitting two cedar gunnel caps which were missing, general cleaning and inspection, and a general description of the restoration procedure.

Boat Type: Sailing Canoe
Name: N/A
Date Built: 1884
Builder:. A. Bain & Co.
Model: N/A
Length:12’ 10”
Beam: 2’ 6”
Donor: John F. Prendergast, given in memory of his mother and father
Accession Number: 1976.001

This sailing canoe was built in Clayton, N.Y. by A. Bain & Co., successor name to the St. Lawrence Skiff Building Company first established by Xavier Colon. It has two masts and two spars. It was restored in 1977 by the St. Lawrence Restoration Co., Inc. and currently is natural with the hull painted deep blue.
The boat was the winner of "Best of Class" for sailing canoes and "Classic Boat of the Year" awards at the 1976 Antique Boat Show.

Boat Type: Canoe
Builder: Slipstream
Model: Wee Lassie
Length: 10-1/2 ft
Beam: 27 in
Date Built: 2022
Donor: Slipstream Watercraft
Accession Number: NA2024.1

The Wee Lassie combines the advantages of a kayak with the strong points of a canoe. Weighing between 9-15 pounds depending on hull laminate choice, carrying the Wee Lassie over long distances isn't an issue and neither is loading or off-loading from a vehicle. With depth options of 10-13 inches, Slipstream Watercraft can precisely match personal size and load requirements. The original builder of this model, John Henry Rushton, designed the canoe to be paddled with a double blade (kayak style) which offers many advantages such as easier control, greater speed, and less fatigue. Slipstream's Wee Lassie is a faithful replica of Rushton's Wee Lassie.

Boat Type: Canoe, Aluminum
Builder: Grumman
Model: Unk.
Length: 15’
Beam: 35”
Date Built: 1973
Donor: Margie Wallace and Alice Dodge Wallace
Accession Number: X2008.602

This is an aluminum canoe built by Grumman of Marathon, NY, and owned and raced by Homer Dodge, a famous outdoorsman and canoe racer. Dodge competed in many races on the upper Hudson River in rough water, which will explain the large dent in the side of this canoe. The boat is constructed entirely of sheet- aluminum, held together with aluminum rivets and machine screws. There is a wood yoke with foam carrying pads for portaging. The boat is two-tone blue, dark on the outside and baby blue on the inside. Stamped on the builder's plate is the number 4008-G-3-15, and a plate near the stern deck on the starboard side reads GBM150391273.

Boat Type: Downriver Racing Kayak
Builder: Larry Zuk
Model: Sharpie
Length: 176 in.
Beam: 25 in.
Date Built: 1956
Donor: Larry Zuk
Accession Number: 2008.009.2

Sharpie downriver racing kayak, designed and built by Larry Zuk in 1956 in Colorado. Five hulls were built to this design.

Boat Type: Canoe, lapstrake
Builder: J.H. Rushton
Model: Canadian
Length: 15’ 0”
Beam: 2’ 1”
Date Built: 1896
Donor: Andrew McNally III
Accession Number: 1981.006

This canoe is an excellent example of a J.H. Ruston deluxe racing model. It is built in smooth skin lapstrake of white cedar on red elm half-round ribs. It has mahogany decks and outwales, basswood floor boards, Spanish cedar shear streaks, ribs shimmed at keel. The hardware consists of two bang strips, one painter ring, two flag sockets. It has varnished decks and three thwarts, with a green hull. There is a builder’s plate on the bow coaming.

Boat Type: Canoe, Rushton
Builder: J.H. Rushton
Model: St. Regis
Length: 12.8’
Beam: 2’9”
Date Built: Before 1900
Donor: A.W. Allison
Accession Number: 1964.002

This Rushton Canoe, St. Regis Model, has both the builder's plate and the dealer's plate. It also has a folding seat with dealer's plate. It is cedar lapstrake with natural finish. The builder, Henry Rushton, worked in Canton, NY and was producing and offering canoes in his catalogue as early as 1881.

Boat Type: Canoe
Builder: J.H. Rushton
Model: Wee Lassie
Length: 10’ 6”
Beam: 2.5’
Date Built: ca. 1895
Donor: The estate of Wilna Natalie, in memory of Wm. B. Kirk
Accession Number: 1973.003

Description:
This boat is a Rushton Canoe. The model is “Wee Lassie”, a Nessmuk type canoe.
In 1880, George Washington Sears, a well-known outdoorsman and writer, asked Rushton, whose shop was in Canton, NY, to build him a canoe less than 20 pounds. This type became the “feather-weight” canoe of 18-22 pounds, sometimes referred to as a “sporting canoe.” It was a very successful canoe and was included in the Rushton catalog for a number of year, and this type canoe was often called a “Nessmuk.” Sears, or Nessmuk as he was better known by his pen name, provided great publicity for the canoe in his articles. This canoe was built for the Durant family at Pine Knot Camp in the Adirondacks. It was donated by the estate of Wilna Natali, in memory of William B. Kirk. Clinker built refinished by Mary Bush 1977. The stern cleat is probably not original.

Boat Type: Canoe
Builder: Unknown
Model: N/A
Length: 14’ 7”
Beam: 32”
Date Built: ca. 1900
Donor: Unknown
Accession Number: 1995.002

The craft has an unusual skiff-like stem and deck, and in that respect is very similar to the St. Lawrence skiff. In addition, the planking is nicely lined out and the ribs are uncommonly thick and narrow.