Honeymoon with a Prospector
By Lawrence Meyer
It was dirty and unlovely, this canoe without its canvas skin. Its interior of ribs and planking was speckled with a residue of flaking varnish. The inwales, stems, and decks were adrift where they should have joined. Much of the cedar planking was cracked and splitting. This skeleton of wood was a long way from being a canoe again.
It was also for sale. I hadn't gone looking for it, but here it was. Did I really need another canoe? And did I want to rebuild another one myself?
I pulled a tape measure and found my answer. This canoe was 15 inches deep. It looked like a Chestnut, the maker of the canoe I'd rebuilt years ago. And if it was a Chestnut, the depth meant it had to be a Prospector - a legendary canoe, known to every savvy paddler.
Developed in the 1920s, the Chestnut Prospector was designed to carry a heavy load yet also be fast, maneuverable, and light enough to portage. To achieve this the canoe was given extra depth at the center; rockered ends, and a full, round-bottomed hull.
The Prospector was also given a lasting endorsement by Bill Mason, an oracle of Canadian canoeing. The canoe's blend of qualities fit Mason's definition of the best kind of paddling: a wood-canvas canoe for the aesthetics of it, a big rugged canoe for wilderness travel, and a versatile canoe for the variety of paddling he loved. It boils down to this: a canoe good enough for Mason ought to satisfy a fanatic's dream of a canoe and that fanatic's canoeing ambitions for a lifetime. At least, that's what I was thinking when I bought it, took it home, and crammed it in my basement, where I could work on it that winter.
A few years earlier, when I'd resolved to rebuild my first canoe, a Chestnut Ogilvy, I was entirely ignorant of how to do it. But I relied on The Wood and Canvas Canoe: A Complete Guide to Its History, Construction, Restoration and Maintenance, by Jerry Stelmok and Rollin Thurlow. That Stelmok, a Maine canoe builder; and Thurlow, his former apprentice, would share their trade secrets suggests that this passion is not a bottom-line business. Building and restoring is their bread and butter, but the book was an invitation to amateurs like me to plunge in, too.
Beautiful things made by hand carry within them the seeds of their survival. They generate a spark of affection. For some it's sentimental, for some it's the art of the craftsmanship, for some the beauty of the finished boat. People love these things and try hard to ensure they endure.
The survival of the wood-canvas canoe (to paraphrase John McPhee) is certainly a matter of the heart; a romantic affair. The economics are unfavorable. In fact, the wood-canvas canoe's most conspicuous asset and advantage is that it's a beautiful piece of art. It's the Shaker rocking chair of outdoor sport - handcrafted, simple, clean, and functional. There's nothing in it that doesn't have to be there, but all of the pieces add up to more than the parts. It works well and looks wonderful doing it.
To put the Prospector in the water by Memorial Day, I'd have to hurry. First, I'd do the structural repairs. Then I'd turn it over to Bill Clements, a professional boat-builder, for the canvassing and filling (I had done the Ogilvy myself in my backyard, but this time my yard would likely still be snow-filled.) Finally, I'd finish it by rebuilding the seats, thwarts, and outwales while the filler cured, by which time I could paint and varnish the interior.
The first step took two weeks - 14 days of rising at 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. and laboring away as long as possible. Canvassing and filling go fast with a proper facility and a practiced land, and Bill Clements finished that job in a day. The onset of spring liberated me and the project from the dark and cramped confines of my basement, and I finished the work in my driveway. The hull was a canoe again. The shellac bottom and the varnished interior were a coppery brown, the painted flanks a glossy green.
That summer I honeymooned with the Prospector on rivers around greater Boston and on longer trips in Vermont and Maine. I came to know why Bill Mason loved this smooth fast canoe. There are probably better small solo canoes. But none of them could take you where, in fact and fantasy, this one could; deep into the heart of the wilderness, and into the human heart.
Know-how is not enough to preserve anything so unnecessary as a wood-canvas canoe. The thing must be beautiful enough to love, and someone must care enough to say so.
Lawrence Meyer, a freelance writer who lives in Milton, Mass, is an active member of the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association's Norumbega Chapter. He likes to canoe.
This article originally appeared in the March 2000 edition of AMC Outdoors and is reprinted here by permission. The AMC can be found at 5 Joy St., Boston, MA 02108 or by email at amcoutdoors@amcinfo.org.
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