Canoe Returned to Chinook Tribe by Clark Descendants

[abhraxas]

Here's the link to an interesting article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch. The builder of the canoe is not identified. Does anyone know where the canoe was built and by whom?

http://www.stltoday.com/news/state-...cle_50f09339-4e26-5371-8706-859b0742a5ec.html

 

[crosscuts]

The Associated Press ran the story of the replacement of the canoe stolen by Lewis and Clark on Sept. 24. The canoe was built by the Applegate Boat Works in Veneta, Oregon. Construction is plywood on hard chine frame.

R.C.

 

[Benson Gray]

The page at http://www.applegateboatworks.com/coastal.html has more details about their Northwest Coast Canoes and the one at http://www.applegateboatworks.com/oldtown.html indicates that they have restored at least one wooden Old Town canoe. Their links page at http://www.applegateboatworks.com/linkage.html sadly does not include the WCHA.

Benson

 

[abhraxas]

Thanks to all for the information!

 

[jkohnen]

I'm one of the guys turning the big canoe in the photo that ran with that article in many papers (taken with my camera by Laura McCallum). Here are some more photos of the canoe during its construction:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jkohnen/sets/72157626932213867/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jkohnen/sets/72157627346113994/

John McCallum of Applegate Boatworks is an expert on NW Indian canoes. The original dugouts had a flat-bottomed, dorylike midsection, so using plywood to construct replicas isn't a stretch. The hard part is getting the plywood sides to conform to the sharp, almost finlike forefoot and "sternfoot, but John has become quite adept at persuading plywood to do what it doesn't want to do. The canoes have no internal framing except the thwarts, and stitch 'n' goo is used at the chines. John's canoes are very close in shape and performance to the original dugouts. He's built canoes for several of the NW tribes. In fact, the tribes keep him so busy he isn't doing much of anything else nowadays!

John Kohnen