You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘The Canadian Canoe Museum’ tag.
The Canadian Canoe Museum has more that 100 canoes and kayaks on display – from the great dugouts of the First Nations of the Pacific Northwest to Adam van Koeverden’s Olympic kayak – you are sure to find a favourite! But did you know that we also have some re-purposed canoes? Our visitors have a great time using their percussion skills on our Canoe Kettle Drum or meditating in the “Sukkanoe” – read more about these great displays here.
Our latest re-purposed canoe was donated by Nova Craft Canoes and is an exquisite “Canoe Couch”. Visitors, volunteers and staff have all taken a turn resting their weary bones on its leather cushions.
Through out history people have had some great ideas that are canoe related. The canoe sidecar is very popular and was very prominent in our Canoes To Go exhibit. Below is a photo from the Birmingham Motorcycle Club from 1925 with their rendition.
The IE Weldon Secondary School’s canoe building class displayed a “canoe car” at the 2013 Small Craft Rendezvous that was a hit with all the visitors.
All you have to do is use your imagination and the canoe become an unique art form. The Strathcona Park Lodge has this canoe planter on display while a home owner in northern BC had the same idea but the local wild life found another use for the canoe!
But I think my favourite is the canoe pond – might be great at the entrance of our Museum!
Have you re-purposed a canoe? We would love to see your creation! Email pictures to marina@canoemuseum.ca or post on our Facebook page here.
Upon arriving to the museum this morning, Russ and I were both surprised to see that all of our ribs had turned black! The ribs, which had been soaking for a week in a container made of galvanized steel, had turned black as a result of the chemical reaction between the tannins in the red oak and the galvanized steel.
Ribs soaking in a galvanized tub
Although the issue was merely an aesthetic one, a simple solution was to eventually stain all of the ribs of the boat so that they were consistent in colour (you’ll see that in the next post).
Since beginning this project I have been eagerly awaiting the day when we would get to steam and bend the ribs into place. That day had finally come. There is something rather fascinating about manipulating the wood so drastically. Apart from having to be mindful of the short window of opportunity that exists in regards to shaping the ribs while they remain hot (once they cool off, it is more difficult to shape the ribs), shaping the ribs is actually quite simple.
The steam box set up with timer on top to time the 10 minute ‘steam time,’ the two plastic boxes underneath with hoses running out of them are creating the steam.
This week we wanted to establish the desired length and shape of all the ribs necessary for building our Greenland skin on frame kayak. To accomplish this we made temporary thin flexible ribs to establish the correct length for each of the permanent ribs needed.
fitting thin, flexible temporary ribs where the permanent ribs will eventually go.
Today we began by selecting a piece of straight grained red oak suitable to serve as our keel stringer (aka keelson) and proceeded to plane all faces smooth and round the edges. We needed to determine whether the chosen piece of wood had any curves in it as it is important to work with the natural curves of the selected piece in order for it to be oriented in the same direction as the curve of the bottom of the boat (moving slightly up toward the bow and stern). Luckily the piece of wood that we had chosen was ideal for use as a keel stringer.
Here you can see the temporary braces holding the keel stringer in the correct position. You can also see one of two Velcro straps discussed later in this blog.
The Canadian Canoe Museum's Blog 