Chestnut vs. Old Town

[Larry Meyer]

Don’t mean to make too much of this – or set off Benson – but I have been thinking lately that when it comes to offering canoes for wilderness canoe tripping , Chestnut did this type of canoe much better than Old Town. Old Town just does not seem to have anything in the class of the Prospector and Cruiser, nor did they make freighters. Chestnut seemed to go the extra mile when it came to refining hull shapes; extracting the Prospector from the Cruiser and really going eccentric with the Ogilvy. Did Old Town get its basic hull designs from Charles River canoes and let it go at that? Of course Severeird and pal did their umpteen thousand mile trip from Minnesota to Hudson Bay in an OT in the 30s, so there is some glory for OT in that.

 

[MGC]

It's an interesting discussion. "Wilderness tripping" was not the primary purpose for Maine built canoes. Canoes were made for function or for recreation.
The recent thread about the Pickard canoe centered on the same thing. Are there differences between working and recreational styles of canoes? And the answer is clearly yes.
In the state of Maine the White canoes were often used by the Forest Service, guides and lumber companies. There were also some locally built purpose specific hulls. These are often higher volume boats with refined entry that could be used to supply a fire tower or haul a quarter mile of copper line for a "sport", run a set of rapids loaded to the rails with gear and poled back up a set of rapids by someone wearing hob nailed boots. Other Maine builders (Morris, Carleton etc.) also catered to the recreational crowd and it was a significant one. Boston was a great place to sell canoes, but not working canoes.
That's not to say that Old Towns 20 foot canoes did not have a place, they did. But it seems like Old Town and White (both building boats in Old Town) each had a sweet spot for the markets they served. That's always been my impression based upon what my father told me about the working boats they used on the big lakes and on the Allagash....mostly Whites, almost always Whites.
White seemed to own the working boat distinction fairly exclusively.
Look at our New York builders. The Sairy Gamp wouldn't have lasted an hour on Moosehead and Nessmuk would have spent most of his time in the drink if he tried to use that hull on Chamberlain or Chesuncook.
If you want to take a look (in my opinion) of the evolved Maine working canoe look no farther than the Atkinson Traveler that Rollin Thurlow designed and builds. It takes the Maine working canoe to the next logical level and refines it for wilderness tripping.
Old Town canoes evolved (my opinion) from nice tender hulls in the early days to boats that were better suited for leisurely safe paddling. It wasn't until the production of the glassed and rubber boats that they really began to address performance (Canadianne, Penobscot etc.).
Benson, you have been queued up.

 

[Gil Cramer]

Every manufacturer builds what will sell. The market for canoes in Canada was different than the market in the US, The US market in the early 20th century was not a tripping market, but more of a leisure market. With the difficulty in exporting canoes across the border, Old Town didn't see any need to add other hull shapes. My understanding is that Old Town Canoe Company was started to make money. Today Old Town is still following the same concept which is "build what will sell".

 

[paddler123]

Of course Severeird and pal did their umpteen thousand mile trip from Minnesota to Hudson Bay in an OT in the 30s, so there is some glory for OT in that.

The Hubbard expedition also used Old Town canoes. While I wouldn't hold them up as an example of a triumphant canoeing success, it probably wasn't really the canoe's fault.

 

[Benson Gray]

No offense taken and everyone else has already said nearly everything that I would have. Companies generally become profitable by delivering products that their customers want to buy. Both Old Town and Chestnut were clearly successful but the markets they served were very different. Tariffs were also a factor as described at http://www.wcha.org/forums/index.php?threads/14830/ in some detail. Small boats tend to be very regional. There are significant differences between the Adirondack, Rangeley, and Grand Lake Stream area boats which all reflect the unique characteristics of each geography.

You may think that Old Town got "its basic hull designs from Charles River canoes and let it go at that" but the chart at http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/models.html shows that the internally developed H. W. models with round bottoms were more popular than the Charles River style canoes with flat bottoms. Their working canoe was the I. F. or Guide model. The 1901 catalog page at http://www.wcha.org/forums/index.php?attachments/25088/ confirms that this was based on the canoes of the local Penobscot Indians. The information at http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/penobscot/ has more design details from a very old Penobscot canoe. See http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/hull-x-s.gif for some cross sections of the various Old Town designs although the differences are very subtle.

The interest in wilderness canoe paddling within the United States during 1970s became large enough that Old Town introduced their Tripper model. The greatest demand at that time was for plastic canoes and this became one of their most successful models ever.

Old Town did not completely ignore the working boat market. Their Carleton catalogs included a batteau until 1922. If Old Town had ever found a significant demand in the United States for big and deep canoes like the Prospector, Cruiser, Ogilvy, or freighter styles in the first half of the 1900s then I expect that they would have offered them.

Benson

 

[Dan Miller]

And Old Town would custom build as well, for example extra-deep guide models and the sectional canoe built for the Ziegler North Pole expedition.

 

[Larry Meyer]

Thanks. Read a book about Teddy Roosevelt’s exploration of an unknown Amazon tributary. As I recall the party was large and eventually split in two. One of the parties was led by a guy who insisted canoes, probably Old Town, were the only boat for the job. Roosevelt’s party used native dug-outs that proved a disaster; no free board, unmanageable, and heavy. The party that used canoes on another river did fine. Roosevelt and his party was a disaster. Roosevelt almost died. I may be assuming the canoes were Old Towns based on an assumption that at the time Old Towns were about the only canoe on the market they could get at the time. Might be worth looking into.

 

[MGC]

To frame that with dates, the Amazon expedition took place in 1913/14.
There were quite a few other active builders at that time. Old Town was likely one of the most prominent US builders.

 

[Fitz]

IIRC, Larry you are right about the Amazon expedition. I do believe they were OT's, but it has been awhile since I read the book.

Not much mention of the Guide. I think it makes for a very good tripper.

 

[Benson Gray]

The River of Doubt by Candice Millard is a great book about Roosevelt's trip and I read it many years ago. My recollection is that it described the canoes they took as "Canadian canoes" which were originally purchased in New York City with the rest of their camping equipment. It was never clear if this phrase was used in the generic British sense which commonly means any open canoe or in the specific literal sense to indicate a canoe that was actually built in Canada. I spent a fair amount of time searching for more details but never found a good answer. A broad variety of canoes from builders in both Canada and the United States would have been readily available in New York City at that time. Please let me know if anyone has more information on this topic. Thanks,

Benson

 

[paddler123]

The Wikipedia article for Chestnut says that Roosevelt "purchased Chestnut canoes for a South American expedition," but there's no citation and I can't find any independent attestation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chestnut_Canoe_Company

 

[Larry Meyer]

Doubtful canoes on the River of Doubt! Been thumbing through my copy of the River of Doubt for further clues as to the doubtful canoes used. The text is very confused on this subject. The canoes are distinctly described (page 33) as being 19 foot wood canvas canoes - but each weighs 160 pounds! That doesn’t add up, does it? Don’t know how far you pushed this, Benson, but I would guess the author would be flattered to receive a query on this subject?

In a footnote it is stated that in TR’s book Through the Brazilian Wilderness there is an Appendix authored by the purchaser of the canoes, Fiala, on the canoes.

 

[Benson Gray]

It appears that someone who used Squirrelwhisperer as their username added the Roosevelt message in Chestnut article on Wikipedia with the comment that "I am expanding this article... will add more information and citations and images" on 10 September 2015. They also updated the Wikipedia page for B. N. Morris so my guess is that this is really Kathy Klos. I just sent her an email asking for more details. I suspect that the actual citation will not be arriving in Wikipedia any time soon if they haven't gotten it done in over five years.

The circa 1913 Chestnut catalog lists a 19 foot canoe at 160 pounds as shown below. The 1926 Old Town catalog listed their 20 foot Guide model at 94 pounds but the "Approx. Weight Packed" was 170 pounds and the "Approx. Weight Crated" for export was 350 pounds. It is not clear which weight was being used on page 33. I have not tried contacting the author.

Theodore Roosevelt's book Through the Brazilian Wilderness is available from https://archive.org/details/throughbrazilian0000roos which makes it easily searchable. It says "Our nineteen-foot canvas-covered freight canoe, a type especially built for the purpose on deep, full lines with high free-board, weighed about one hundred and sixty pounds and would carry a ton of cargo" on page 355 in the Appendix. The canoes were purchased in New York as confirmed on the bottom of page five. Page 353 suggests "Unless the difficulties of transportation are insuperable, canvas-and-cement canoes, such as can be obtained from various firms in Canada and the United States, should by all means be taken. They are incomparably superior to the dugouts."

Benson

 

[Larry Meyer]

That would seem to nail it down at least 90% to Chestnut .

Have been skimming thru the book again. The advocate and purchaser of the 19 wood-canvas canoes was the expedition member Anthony Fiala, who had some Arctic exploration experience and was engaged by the Expedition (mainly Roosevelt) to equip the Expedition. However exact goals, destinations, methods and personnel of the Expedition remained for long very vague. So the whole thing suffered from Rooseveltian whimsicality. Actually four types of boats were in play for the expedition; two types - wood canvas and native dugouts – arrived after a long portage of tons of supplies at the put-in. By this time logistics were falling apart, porters were going AOWL, vital food supplies were being dumped trailside, and TR got to thinking this was all Fiala’s fault. Short food supplies and general disgruntlement with logistics led TR to dump Fiala from his (TR’s) river party. He offered Fiala a consolation expedition on another river, which Fiala duly set out on. With dugouts, the wood canvas canoes having been left behind to make way for food. Fiala soon just about drowned in the dugouts, went back and gathered up the wood canvas canoes and then had a relatively easy time of it in the w-c canoes. For TR the dugouts were a disaster, just about costing him his life. But he had to part with the w-c canoes in order to part with Fiala. Roosevelt is even quoted mid-way through the trip longing for the birchbark canoes, instead of the dugouts, he had grown to love paddling in the wilds of Maine!