The Wooden Canoe Heritage Association, Ltd
A non-profit membership organization devoted to preserving, studying, building, restoring, and using
wooden and bark canoes,
and to disseminating information about canoeing heritage throughout the world.
Wooden Canoe Research Resources
- WCHA Forums
- Our on-line discussion group, one of the best places to get your questions about wood canoes of all types answered.
- Serial Number Search
- A sub-set of the WCHA Forums. Here you can post the serial number of your canoe, and one of the
WCHA volunteers will provide information about your canoe. Build records survive for Old Town, Carleton, Kennebec,
and some St. Louis Boat and Canoe Company canoes. Other companies sometimes coded useful information into
their serial numbers. This is the place to learn what.
- How Much is My Canoe Worth?
- Well, we can't really tell you, but this essay should get you started on the right track...
- Old Town Build Record Archive Project
- A joint project of the WCHA and Old Town Canoe Company (with funding from many other sources) that
scanned over 210,000 Old Town Canoe Company and Carleton Canoe Company build record cards. Learn about the project
and some of its results here.
- WCHA Historians' Network
- Regional representatives experienced in wooden canoe history and identification with whom you can
communicate.
- Historic Canoe Company Catalogs (and more)
- Images of catalog covers from the golden age of wooden canoes, with a few surprises and useful bits included for good measure
- Thompson Brothers Dating Matrix
- Dave Osborn pulled information from the old Thompson catalogs that allows us to estimate the age of a canoe based
on the materials used.
- List of Maine Canoe Builders
- An exhaustive list of bark, canvas and all-wood canoe builders of Maine, put together by the Penobscot Marine Museum.
- Canoe Prices Over Time
- Have you ever tried to convince yourself or anyone else that buying a wooden canoe is a good investment?
- Wood Canoe Identification Guide
- Photos, specifications, and other information to aid in identifying old wood canoes, put together by
canoe builder and historian Dan Miller (who also happens to be WCHA web master, too). This is an off-site link.
- The WCHA Store
- The WCHA store carries many items useful for researching wooden canoes, including books and catalog reprints (both paper and
digital).
