15' White Guide canoe

[Michael Grace]

I have a sweet little 15' White canoe, a circa 1950 Camp Guide model, in original condition. It's in great shape but will be much better after a full restoration. Does anyone else have one like this? I'm curious about two things:

First, thwarts... The one original seat (stern) is still there, but the thwarts were removed at some time in the past. It's unclear how many thwarts it originally had - there are two sets of bolts with wing nuts there now, one set fore and one aft. There is also another pair of bolt holes in the center but no bolts. I cannot find any images of a 15' model so I'm wondering if there were originally three thwarts or not. Three seems a lot for a 15' canoe, but then there is no bow seat.

Second, details of build options... I've gone through catalogs to which I have access and don't see details like the cost for adding half ribs, the availability of special, wide outwales (this canoe has 1.5" wide spruce outwales), etc. Is this information available somewhere?

Thanks for any insight,
Michael

 

[Benson Gray]

The canoe information in the White catalogs after 1947 tends to be very brief and I didn't find anything more than you did. The closest comment was on page 12 of the 1947 catalog saying "The White Canoe Co. is noted for its custom-built work!" as shown below. The later versions of the Old Town Molitor model were made with wide outwales so it wouldn't need any thwarts. Nice looking canoe,

Benson

 

[Michael Grace]

Thank you Benson. The wide outwales on this White are similar to those on a modern Molitor, except that their cross-sectional shape is different. Because they are spruce I’m thinking they weren’t designed to eliminate the need for thwarts.

Michael

 

[chris pearson]

Thats really cool. Good find!