Here's a toughie!

[bredlo]

I found this photo of my grandfather in a boat, on a lake, somewhere in Wisconsin where he lived until moving to Chicago as an adult.

He's obviously rowing it, but with the deck visible on the left, I was thinking perhaps this was some kind of square-stern rowing canoe... in birchbark if that's possible. Maybe a dingy... I'm just not sure.

So I scanned it and thought I'd let you all take a look. There are no other photos of other angles, etc. so that is all we have to examine.
Oh, and he was born in 1901 so I'm guessing this was taken in the late teens to early twenties.

Thanks everybody!

 

[Rob Stevens]

Birchbark? NOT!
It looks to me like the hull skin is canvas, though scuffed. There aren't any visible horizontal lines to indicate wood planks.

 

[Paul Miller]

Whitehall?

As I look at the stern or that boat, I think I see a slight bend inward to show the tell tale sign of a "wineglass" transom.

This boat looks very similar in shape to the boat I posted in the History/ID section a few weeks ago.

The Whitehall had a narrower beam than other "pulling" type row boats. The 16' in the pic attached is only 42" wide.

The boat does look canvased, but they did that to all kinds of boat after they started leaking. But then there could have been builders who made them canvased.

Great picture,

Paul

 

[Todd Bradshaw]

If it was in northern Wisconsin, it may be a Rhinelander Guideboat. They were pretty popular up there and there were variations from builder to builder, but the shape looks pretty close. Here is a shot of a fiberglass replica that a guy up on Trout Lake near Woodruff was building about 20 years ago. I still kick myself for not buying one. He was trimming them out with cedar gunwales, decks, etc. which I didn't like from a toughness/durability standpoint, but I could have replaced them or tried to get him to sell me a bare hull and then used hardwood.

As to the finish on the old boat, it looks more like old paint and moss. If you leave a boat outside in the shade for a few years up there, it will develop a similar patina all by itself.

 

[bredlo]

Wow, some excellent input.

Paul and Todd, those boats are beautiful, and both good contenders I think.
Rob, you're totally right - I hadn't even noticed that.

Just a gorgeous, mossy, chipped, scraped up guide boat I suppose. I love the photo too Paul - from a photography standpoint it's composed just perfectly.

I'm not sure where Grandpa would've have been exactly, but probably near the farm he grew up on in Monroe, in Green County. His grandfather settled the town around the time Wisconsin became a state.

 

[Kathryn Klos]

It's wonderful that you have a picture of your grandfather as a handsome young man. I have one of my grandad in his WWI doughboy uniform, giving my then-fifteen-year-old grandma a hug. It touches my heart in ways there are no words to express.

Kathy

 

[bredlo]

It's wonderful that you have a picture of your grandfather as a handsome young man. I have one of my grandad in his WWI doughboy uniform, giving my then-fifteen-year-old grandma a hug. It touches my heart in ways there are no words to express.

Kathy

Oh my gosh, Kathy - what a treasure!

 

[Todd Bradshaw]

I have a nice photo of my great-grandfather. As it turns out though, he was kind of a rat - sort of a riverboat gambler type who got tired of his wife, had her commited and went out and got a new one! I guess you could do that back then....

Whenever my wife or my mom complain about any of my bad tendencies, I simply hold up the picture and claim that these traits aren't my fault. They were inherited.

 

[bredlo]

Whenever my wife or my mom complain... I simply hold up the picture and claim that these traits aren't my fault.

Nice! And when you're being the good guy, you can claim it's because you're secretly the greatest shoot-em-up actor of all time, Sam Elliot!