Wabasca Canoe Company

Philip

New Member
For the information of others searching for Wabasca Canoe Co info, I recently purchased one made in 1982 from a 15' Chestnut Chum mold. The original purchaser, who I bought it from, was full of mis-information about the company and the canoe he owned. (He bought it new in 1990, where it had hung in the store since it was built in 1982. Then he never paddled it. It was litterally in new condition, save for a couple dings in the gunwhales.) In a roundabout way I tracked down Jamie Thompson, who ran the company, and got the straight goods.

"We built canoes in Wabasca (Alberta, Canada) from 1980 to '83, then shut the plant down and let the brand die. We had about 25 Chestnut moulds, plus two that I made. The really good thing was that we had a source of eastern white cedar and built most of the canoes from that - it is by far the best wood to use and was the only hull material used by Chestnut for decades. We were using Cloverdale paint at the time"

Jamie also built canoes for Chestnut in Fredericton in the '70's.

Each boat has a serial number stamped to the inside of the bow (stem post). Eg. ZWA12345M82E

The ZWA identifies it as built by Wabasca Canoe Co., the 82 is the year it was built. The 5 middle numbers were issued by the federal government and the rest of it refers to province and class.

MyCanoe8.jpg
 
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