Welcome to the WCHA. The Old Town canoe with serial number 46998 is a 17 foot long, CS grade, Otca model with Western red cedar planking, closed spruce gunwales, regular short 16 inch birch decks, birch trim, half ribs, and a keel. It was built between December, 1916 and February, 1917. The original exterior paint color was bright red with a two inch dark blue stripe and pointed ends. This may have looked similar to the image at
http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/designs/design34.gif with dark blue in place of the white stripe. It shipped on February 26th, 1917 to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
A scan of this build record can be found by following the link under the thumbnail image attached below. These scans were created with substantial grants from the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association (WCHA) and others. Additional information about the project to preserve these records is available at
http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/records/ if you want more details. I hope that you will renew your membership to the WCHA so that services like this can continue. See
http://www.wcha.org/wcha/ to learn more about the WCHA and
http://www.wcha.org/join.html to join.
It is also possible that you could have another number or manufacturer if these descriptions don't match your canoe. Feel free to reply here if you have any other questions.
Benson