Old Town Tripper? Canoe

[mhorning]

Hello. Thank you for letting me join the group, and providing opportunities to learn about canoes. I have been looking for a while for a Royalex canoe and recently purchased what I think is a Tripper.

It has a serial number of 217822 and has the Oltonar Tag under the decals. I wondered if you could tell me the approximate year. Thank you for any help.

Mike

 

[Benson Gray]

Welcome and congratulations, the Old Town canoe with serial number 217822 is a 17 foot long Chipewyan Tripper model with aluminum inserts in the rails that weighed 78 pounds. It was built in May, 1977. The original exterior color was red. It shipped on June 8th, 1977 to Germantown, Tennessee. A scan showing the build record can be found below.

This scan and several hundred thousand more were created with substantial grants from the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association (WCHA) and others. A description of the project to preserve these records is available at http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/records/ if you want more details. I hope that you will contribute, join, or renew your membership to the WCHA so that services like this can continue. See https://www.woodencanoe.org/about to learn more about the WCHA and https://www.woodencanoe.org/shop to donate or join.

It is also possible that you could have another number or manufacturer if this description doesn't match your canoe. Feel free to reply here if you have any other questions.

Benson

 

[mhorning]

Thank you for the information Benson. It's interesting to see how this canoe has traveled. It started outside of Memphis, TN. I found it in an old barn in Bland County Virginia, and it's now a few more hours north in Christiansburg, VA.