Stems are different in that they appear to be slab sided. I hadn't seen that before. I think it's locally built as the constructing is abit rough. The deck cut-outs are not shaped very well.
This is almost certainly a home-built one-off canoe. The decks and the stems are very similar to those shown in the 1938 Popular Mechanics article "Build Your Own Canoe." The construction of the stems is shown in figures 4, 6, and 7, and the shape of the decks is shown in figures 4 and 5 from the article. During construction, the stem is temporarily fastened to the form strongback with a cleat, as shown.
About the building of the stems, the designer/author R. O. Buck says:
"Bending canoe stems is a cranky job, even with special equipment for the business, so you use stems built up from regular stock as in Fig. 6. The grain should run nearly at right angles as in Fig. 7, and casein glue and dowels should be used in the joint."
Construction of the PM canoe was the subject of an article by Jack Davis, "Building the Popular Mechanics canoe" in the Summer, 1981, Wooden Canoe Journal, No. 7, and while he does not discuss the building of the stems, a photo in that article shows the "slab" stems being built as per the plans. (The construction of a one-off canoe somewhat different than the PM canoe was the subject of an article by Alex Comb, "Building a One-Off Wood and Canvas Canoe" in the April 2006 issue of Wooden Canoe, No. 134; notably, that canoe abandoned the PM canoe's style of stems and used the more usual bent stems.)
Also, the planking pattern on the canoe in question does not follow the planking pattern shown in the PM article. The builder may not have been using the PM plans, or any plans at all, or he might simply have gone his own way with the planking, or have followed the pattern of an actual canoe he had access to. Who knows?
I tend to agree that this canoe is not worth the money/effort to restore -- but if the owner knows the person who built it, and has a special connection to that person, perhaps . . .
