17 ft Thompson Bros. with FS brands, no serial number...when was it built?

[Jim_in_No.MN]

This past fall I finished restoring a 17 ft. Thompson Brothers wood/canvas canoe. I determined the maker by the deck pattern key linked through this web site. No serial number or tags exists to further help with an ID. It is also branded in three places with "U.S.F.S.". Stelmok and Thurlow mention Thompson Bros building rugged "camp" canoes for the US Forest Service in the 1930s. This canoe does not seem to fit the specs for that model, or any other that Thompson built for that matter.

My canoe is 17 ft. long x 32 inches wide x 14.5 inches deep. It has several inches of tumblehome.

Does anyone have opinions about when this canoe was likely built?

Thanks for any help you can lend!

 

[Dave Osborn]

I've seen a lot of Thompson's. Never seen one with a carry thwart....interesting.
To me lack of half ribs, but "long nose" stem profile, says Indian model.
There is no good way to tell the age on this model other than they were apparently built from 1928-1950 with the long nose...

 

[Jim_in_No.MN]

Thanks for your thoughts Dave. Actually I added the carry thwarts. I had to repair one of the decks and thought the carry thwarts might prevent similar damage.