So, I’ve done it!

An example of the beauty of cedar strip canoes, photo courtesy of Dan Iggers.

[The Story so far]

Well, to clarify, I haven’t done a damn thing, yet.

I’ve gone and decided to make a cedar strip canoe. As of a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t know much more about them than how they look (pretty darn beautiful, if, like above, they turn out well).

Had I paddled one before? I could count the number of times without using fingers. I had very little idea of the history and actual construction details behind this particular boat-building technique.

I’ve since dug around a bit, read a few things on the interweb, some encouraging, some dismaying, but nothing yet that told me I’m wildly unrealistic.

Challenges

I’m a city dweller with no garage or basement, but a nice little yard space behind the house I rent, so my goal will be to build this canoe in my backyard with zero boat-building experience, few carpentry skills, fewer power tools, and limited time outside of my full-time office job.

I have to take the seasons into account, this being Canada, with a two-season climate (Winter and Construction). So to account for my inexperience and current lack of research, I’ve decided to give myself a goal to be paddling a finished product in 2016.

I want to research and collect resources this winter, so I’ll have a good idea of the costs, skills, materials, and equipment needed.

My research will influence how I schedule the build, since there are climate/temperature-specific stages to the process. The key here is to be flexible based on what I learn and to tailor things to my particular circumstances.

Resources

At this point, I’m not going to list my resources — the list has gotten very long, very quickly, but to be of any use to you, I want to post only what has been of use to me, and that will start to become apparent the more I progress down this road.

At this point, however, almost everything I’ve read and seen online points to the book Canoecraft, by Ted Moores. I’ve picked it up and have started reading, and judging by the inspiring first pages, I expect it to be a good read, and a good reference for the rest of my journey.

“Canoecraft: An Illustrated Guide to Fine Woodstrip Construction” by Ted Moores

I hope that by following along with my successes (I hope there will be at least one, and it floats) and failures (I expect at least a few — but ones we can learn from), you will learn what might work for you, should you decide to do something similar.

If you have no intention of doing something like this, I hope to inspire you, or at the very least entertain you.

In any case, I’ll document as much as I can to bring you along for the ride.