Canoe Heritage Museum starting

[Jeff Dean]

Thought WCHA might be interested in this new museum.

Jill and I have sent 22 of our historic canoes to the museum as the core of its display. It is just getting started. Will will likely send our collection of canoe catalogs and books there in time as well.

Included in the collection are two Rushtons, a Gerrish, a Morris,a Dan Herald, a Walter Walker sailer, Vaillancourt, an Old Town, and a lot more, obviously.

The Sigurd Olson Institute (http://www.northland.edu/Northland/Soei) will be heavily involved in education, design, and interpretation.

Below is a photo of our canoes spread out on a lawn in front of our storage building in preparation for loading. They were carefully loaded into a semi and are now up in Spooner, Wisconsin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spooner_(city),_Washburn_County,_WI).

Also below are photos of our two Rushtons. I am not positive about the identity of the little one. One expert thought it was a Sairy Gamp. The big one is definitely an Indian Girl.

Click on the thumbnail photos below for larger images.

Here is the Museum's initial flier (PDF file):

http://home.att.net/~bmwdean/museum-flier.pdf

This may be the first U. S. museum dedicated exclusively to the history of the North American canoe. Jill and I certainly wish it well. It should be up and running in 2009. Stop by Spooner for a visit!

 

[pklonowski]

Ditto, what he said...

THANK YOU!

 

[Mark Adams]

Hi Jeff,

Welcome to the boards! Hopefully we'll see more of you around here! Let me add my thanks to you for this wonderful organization that you created. As you can see from my number, I have enjoyed the WCHA for a lot of years now!

 

[Jeff Dean]

Thank you all for your kind words. Jill and I are delighted that the organization we were involved in founding has prospered so well. Another one I co-founded, BMW Motorcycle Owners of America (http://www.bmwmoa.org), has over 40,000 members, several full-time staff, and a headquarters building in St. Louis. But we feel that WCHA is very special to us.

Jill and I are down to two wood-and-canvas canoes. One is a ca. 1910 Morris, and the other is a canoe Joe Seliga built for us in 1982. I think we will keep these as long as we can:

 

[abhraxas]

Great canoe museum

The Strassers and Haucks had the good fortune to visit the incipient museum this August on our way to Quetico for our annual canoe adventure. It's a great building with so many dedicated and hardworking canoe enthusiasts involved. We are so excited to have the museum in the Midwest and grateful to the Deans for their devotion to the wooden canoes! Looking forward to visiting again next summer.

 

[Kathryn Klos]

Us, too...

Denis Kallery and I have also visited the site of the new museum and hope to be involved in helping it get off the ground...

Denis has been involved in WCHA since its first year, so I know I can speak for him as well as myself when I join others here in saying, "thanks, Jeff!"

Kathy

 

[Canerodz]

Below is a photo of our canoes spread out on a lawn in front of our storage building in preparation for loading. They were carefully loaded into a semi and are now up in Spooner, Wisconsin.

Jeff,

Aren't you bothered by all that empty space now?

The two canoes you kept are beautiful, but won't they get lonely?

I would also like to say thank you for your time and generosity. Can't wait to visit the new museum.

 

[Jeff Dean]

Brian sez,
"You can only be young once. But you can always be immature." —Dave Barry

Good quote

I would add, "It's never too late to have a happy childhood." —Wayne Dyer

 

[Canerodz]

Good quote

I would add, "It's never too late to have a happy childhood." —Wayne Dyer

BRILLIANT!

 

[Dan Lindberg]

Jeff,

It's good to see you posting here, I hope you post often.

And like others have said, thanks for helping to start and run this organization, it is a treasure.

As for the canoes, very nice collection, I'm looking forward to visiting and seeing them. thanks for making them available.
And I noticed right away the Seliga missing in the 1st pic,
Joe did make nice canoes, good choice.

As for the museum, you mentioned involvement by the Sig Olson Institute, I hadn't heard this before or saw them in the brochure, is this something new and/or do you have any more info about their involvement?

Dan

 

[garypete]

Permission to use Joe Seliga information from Dean website?

Hi Jeff,

I'm working with the Spooner group setting up the Wisconsin Canoe Heritage Museum.

Do we have your permission to reprint any and/or all of the information on Joe and his canoes from your website?

And can we provide a link from our museum website—when it's completed— to http://jeffdean2.home.att.net/seliga.htm?

Thanks again for starting the WCHA back in the 1970s, and for the recent incredibly generous contribution you and Jill made to Spooner. Good ideas seem to take on a life of their own, don't they?

Gary Peterson, #2526
Rice Lake

 

[Jeff Dean]

Gary,

Of course you can use my Seliga site info.

Let me know when the website it up and running.

jeff.dean@att.net