by Luke Thompson
Step 1. Acquire forms
It was January in the North East Kingdom and a few days into what would later become known as “the ice storm of ’98.” Jayson Benoit and I were heading out on a mission to buy a slightly used set of canoe forms north of the border in Quebec. Canoe forms are a series of canoe cross sections made of void free plywood that attach in line along a rigid strong-back to form the shape of a canoe. This particular shape had evolved from the nearly perfected designs of Maine guide canoes from the 1880’s. Considered “the pinnacle of wilderness canoes thus far”, the “Atkinson Traveler” was designed in 1982 by Rollin Thurlow of The Northwoods Canoe Company in Atkinson, Maine. Jayson had found the forms in the classified section of a boatbuilding magazine and contacted the seller.
Pulling out of the driveway onto Ten Mile Square Road in Jayson’s two wheel drive Ford Ranger, it didn’t take long to drive out of a winter wonderland and into a slippery apocalyptic twilight zone. In a swath along the border, eighty hours of continuous freezing rain had deposited up to four inches of ice across the landscape. Hundreds of huge steel electrical transmission towers along the highway had given way to their thick ice coated cables and crumpled to the ground. Billions of trees had lost their branches or were bent to the ground and snapped. Millions of people across Quebec were experiencing the first days of what would be weeks and in some places months without power. The Canadian military would eventually deploy sixteen thousand personnel.
Meanwhile, we were a couple hours into the drive and running low on gas. The small rural gas station we stopped at was being powered temporarily by a Canadian military generator. A few locals had gathered in the store, their conversation interrupted briefly by the strangers in the Ranger. We paid at par in US dollars and the attendant made change by the flickering light of a candle on the counter. We continued traveling on ice covered roads through eerily dark towns. We knew we were close, but house numbers and mailboxes were obscured by snow and ice. Where were we?
We stopped to ask directions at a little house whose window was lit by an oil lamp. They pointed us in the direction of a small house next to a large outbuilding. There we found the owner of the forms and he led us into the warmth of his well insulated and quite large wood shop. It had a radiant heat slab fueled by an outdoor wood boiler. It was a warm oasis in the cold winter desert. Even though he had not had a fire in the last week, it was calm and comfortable inside despite the icy scene outside. The combination of effective insulation and the radiant slab was inspiring and made an impression on me.
Jayson managed the many miles of icy maneuvering like a champ and we returned victorious to the Vermont Leadership Center (now known as the Northwoods Stewardship Center) with a full set of Atkinson Traveler canoe building forms. It would have been possible to mail-order scale drawings of the forms and cut them out of plywood ourselves, but this set for sale only a few hours away in Canada sounded much easier! Even though the trip was more treacherous than expected, that first step into and out of the ice apocalypse was the easiest of all the steps in the process of building the cedar strip canoe.
The forms mounted to the strong back in the log cabin workshop in February 1998
Step 2. Set up a Workshop
Our team 26 years ago at the Vermont Leadership Center (VLC) in East Charleston consisted of Bill Manning, Mary Hare, Diana Marckwardt, Jayson Benoit, Teri Oughton, Nina Lany, and myself. Running the day to day operations of the center was a whole group effort and the canoe building workshop was no different. We needed to organize a public outreach program and transform the drafty old log cabin into a woodworking shop so we all got right to work. We hired boat builder Mark Tamiso to lead us through the process and we spread the word to the public about the upcoming canoe building outreach program.
We installed stovepipe from the old double barrel wood stove up through the roof. I built a door with a sliding wooden latch. We stuffed the cracks between the logs with fiberglass insulation. With the wood stove warming us, we wired lights, rolled out fiberglass roof insulation and installed tongue and groove pine ceiling boards. We built a custom workbench along one wall. I built a wood storage rack that hung from a rope above our new workspace. Bill Manning brought us his grandfather’s old Craftsman table saw and bandsaw. Jayson’s father, Bruce, lent us his 12” delta planer. Billy Thompson (my dad), Mark Tamiso and I combined our collection of hand tools.
Part of the building process called for steam bending cedar into structural ribs to reinforce the hull. Mark brought a “steam box” and we hung it outside the cabin door in some nearby trees. The ingenious system was an insulated wood box 8”wide by 8” high and 10’ long. It had a rubber automobile radiator hose that ran from an old metal gas can up into one end of the box. When we filled the can with water and placed it on an open campfire the water in the can would boil. Steam would then travel through the rubber hose up into the box. It had a little door we could open on one end to load cedar strips.
Finally it was time to set up the forms. We constructed a long rugged “strong back” and raised it on legs to a good working height. We attached the forms at regular intervals along the 18’ length and the size, scale and outline of our planned creation began to take shape.
Step 3. The wood
Back in early winter we spent a few days hiking around the VLC property with Mark searching for clear cedar logs. We hauled out pieces ranging from 6’ to 19’ long and I used Bill Manning’s Woodmizer sawmill to mill them into 1” and 2” thick boards. We then ripped those boards into 3/8” thick strips on the table saw. We stacked them in a room that had been recently added onto the staff house and was soon to become Jayson’s office. Plugging in a small electric dehumidifier made it into an effective temporary drying shed. After several weeks they were dry enough and we ran them through the planer to turn them into smooth 1/4” thick strips. Those strips were then carefully fed twice through a router table to put a bead on one edge and a cove on the other. When I realized the ash log I had cut down and milled into boards was two inches too short to make the gunwales Mark tracked down some 5/4×18’ boards from Leslie Ham in Sheffield. The wood for the decks and thwarts came from my dad’s secret stockpile of “tornado cherry” a limited supply of wood named from a strong windstorm that touched down in the N.E.K. in ’94 whose path of destruction churned directly across my dad’s land just down the road from the center. This completed the collection of materials and the cozy boatbuilding shop was ready.
Workshop participants assembling the cedar strips.
Step 4. Building the canoe
About a dozen people signed up to attend the canoe building class. Mark’s expertise kept us on track while we glued and secured the thin cedar strips to the forms, shaped, fitted and fastened the ash gunwales and cherry thwarts and decks, and steam bent and installed the structural ribs. It took us six evening sessions over a period of a couple months to build and finish the canoe. It was beautiful. The cherry and the white cedar looked great together. The clear epoxy finish over the invisible fiberglass weave and the five coats of glossy marine varnish gave it a wet glistening look.
In spring when the ice had melted off the little pond out front of the center we tested the flotation integrity of the new boat. It did not sink and then we carried it from the edge of the pond into the center and hung it up in the rafters. It was the spring of 1998. Nina and I worked at the center for another two years and the canoe hung there for another 22 years.
Step 5. Maiden voyage!
Fast forward to August, 2020. Nina and I and our 15 year old daughter Aniela live in a house we built in South Glover. A group of close friends we have known since the days when we all worked at the VLC were planning a week-long family canoe camping trip to Richardson Lake in Maine. Nina and I have a couple canoes hanging in our shed and we have a mid 80’s waterski boat parked in our driveway. I was trying to decide which boat to take, but none of them are well suited for traveling and camping along a lake in Maine. Then I remembered the Atkinson Traveler! The pinnacle of wilderness canoes! I called Maria Young, the director of the NorthWoods Stewardship Center, and she agreed it would be a great idea to unshackle the showpiece canoe from the rafters and set it free for the week of camping in Maine. Thank you Maria!
The iconic canoe was dusty and the glossy wet look had dulled. We lowered it from the rafters, strapped it onto the roof of my truck and drove it to our home in Glover and the workshop I built with a radiant heat concrete slab fueled by an outdoor wood boiler and inspired by the one Jayson and I had visited years ago during the ice storm. I washed the decades of dust away and rinsed it clean. When it was dry I applied two fresh coats of Total Boat “Lust” varnish and the wet look returned! There was not enough time to build seats in the traditional caned method so I made some cherry frames and wove in black nylon webbing instead.
On the drive into Maine I was worried that we might have overpacked, but as we loaded our gear and pushed off from the South Arm campground on Richardson Lake, I realized the Atkinson Traveler was as advertised: “A perfected design.” It could have held more gear without any trouble.
Richardson Lake was uncharacteristically calm and absolutely flat. Our four canoe and four kayak flotilla was mirrored and we appeared to be paddling upside down in the clouds. It was the perfect boat to paddle full of gear on a lake in Maine and it cut through the water smoothly and quietly barely making a wake. We had splendid weather and glassy water throughout the trip.
Since that maiden voyage, Nina and I have taken it camping twice more. Again on Richardson in 2023 and last August from Lobster Lake, down the West Branch of the Penobscot and into Chesuncook Lake. Each time I have hung it back up looking better than when we took it down. Check it out next time you stop in the main lodge at NorthWoods. Its a beauty!
Building and paddling this canoe was fun, informative and rewarding. Let’s do it again, this time without the ice storm! Stay tuned.
The Canoe packed with our gear - floating on Richardson lake in August 2020
