Nutting with red ceder?

[Mark Giovannetti]

Started taking a closer look at the ribs and planking today on the Nutting to start some rib tip repair. After cutting into the old wood for the scarfs it started to look and feel like red ceder. Does anyone know if that could be possible in a pre 1900 canoe? Compared it to some old wood from a Rushton Indian Girl and it looked different. That plus all the splits in the planking made us wonder.

 

[Benson Gray]

Red and white cedar can be exceptionally difficult to distinguish on old canoes but my guess is that you may have red cedar in yours. Western red cedar was in common use from the earliest known Old Town Canoe Company records. A portion of their inventory from September 30th, 1908 at http://forums.wcha.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=7595&d=1242342933 shows 42469 board feet of "Western Cedar on hand" at the bottom of the image with various amounts of local white cedar ribs, planks, and logs above it. This came from a company ledger that has entries for Western or red cedar from 1905 to 1932. The information at http://forums.wcha.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=18732&d=1322443967 has more details about their use of both types of cedar in the 1930s. Old Town always tried to use white eastern cedar for their ribs and red western cedar for the planking when available.

Benson

 

[Mark Giovannetti]

Following up on this post I sent a sample of the ribs & planking to SUNY ESF (College of Environmental Science and Forestry) in Syracuse. I was convinced the ribs were not white cedar. I had to know. Results are as follows. Planking- Eastern White Pine. Ribs- Northern White Cedar. Now I know.