That canoe looks to be readily repairable/restorable. The planking looks to be in great shape; western red cedar is, by its nature, somewhat brittle even when new -- not much of a concern here, as it looks like little, if any, plank work needs to be done, at least as shown in the pictures.
The unpleasant, messy job of stripping the interior has been done, so you start off ahead of the game.
Right now the entire hull may seem a bit flexible because the canvas has been removed and the condition of the gunwales -- it will become quite a bit stiffer with repaired gunwales and when you put a new canvas on.
In the first picture above -- is the section of inwale shown at the top of the picture mahogany, or has it been replaced with some other wood? Is the outwale there missing?
You will probably want to keep as much of the original fabric of the canoe as possible, both to save money (real mahogany ain’t cheap), but also to keep the boat as “original” as is practicable. Repairs/replacement of sections of gunwales is not uncommon, and a fully functional gunwale can be the result as long as scarf joints that are long enough -- at least 8:1 and better 12:1 -- are used.
The butchering of the inwale shown in the second picture is unfortunate, and was almost certainly unnecessary -- but what’s done is done. Splicing in a short replacement section using scarf joints should do the trick. Replacing the entire inwale is not necessary The curve of the sheer is not great at the point of that cut, so a spliced-in repair should have more than adequate strength.
In the same way, the break in the outwale near that cut in the inwale can be repaired by splicing in a new piece of wood with scarf joints, and again, such a splice should be more than strong enough.
Do you have pictures of the decks and ends of the canoe? We’d love to see them.
Good luck this weekend getting the canoe.
The nearest active WCHA chapter to you is:
Coastal Southeast: (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South & North Carolina): Michael Grace, 605 Sugar Pine Dr , West Melbourne, FL 32904; 321-733-9460; wcha_southeast@yahoo com
He’s not right in your neighborhood, but Michael Grace, the chapter head, is a very knowledgeable (and friendly) guy, and there are a few WCHA members in the Atlanta/Macon area.
Greg