woods used by Old Town

[Jan Bloom]

In looking at the build record for the OT canoes I have. I have noticed that my 1937 17' HW is listed with wsp rail and it sure looks like old Sitka to me. The wood for the rails on my 52 Yankee is not listed but it looks like old Sitka. Both have that well cooked salmon color of old sitka. There is one mention of Sitka being used in the Audette book (pg 63, 1st paragraph).

If w c or w Cedar is western red cedar as noted on many build records can we conclude that wsp is western spruce and that it is Sitka? Or is it maybe just undifferentiated western spruce meaning it could be Sitka, Englemann, Black or White or any cross between them and they do hybridize naturally.

 

[Benson Gray]

My guess is that the extra note on the gunwale line of your build record attached below is simply an indication that this canoe has the "D" shaped outside rails as you described at http://forums.wcha.org/showthread.php?t=4999 previously. Old Town had several types of spruce listed in their 1936 inventory including Sitka along with "R. E. Spruce" and "Clear spruce" as shown in the inventory page below. The other pages also included "Clear spruce- Southern" and other types. It is not clear exactly which type of spruce was used on your canoe.

Benson

 

[Jan Bloom]

R.E. Spruce may be Red Eastern spruce aka Adirondack spruce or Red spruce. It grows in the east part of N. A. primarily through out the N.E. and in the upper elevations of the greater Appalachian chain up into New Brunswick. Clear spruce may mean White spruce. White spruce is far more common than Red and was a more commercially important wood that Red because of its wider growth range. I think that we may find this is what was meant.