Member Book & Video Reviews
Boats and Boating in the Adirondacks

Boats and Boating in the Adirondacks
By Hallie E. Bond
334 pp. Cloth. ISBN 0-8156-0373-8
Syracuse University Press, $49.95

Reviewed by John Quenell (Wooden Canoe Issue #81)
June 1997

Hallie Bond, Curator of Collections and Boats at the Adirondack Museum, spent eight years writing Boats and Boating. The book is composed of two major sections. The first is a narrative history of some 200 pages liberally leavened with antique photographs. The second is a 63-page catalog of the 195 boats in the Adirondack Museum collection. An interpretive description of each is provided, and virtually all are illustrated by photographs.

The principal challenge in writing such a book must be that of accommodating so many dimensions. For one thing, many types of craft have been used on Adirondack waters, including aboriginal bark boats and dugouts, a half-dozen types of open canoes, sailing canoes, Adirondack guideboats, Whitehalls, St. Lawrence skiffs, rowboats, shells, sailboats, iceboats, logging boats, duckboats, paddle boats and boats powered by steam, naphtha and gasoline.

Then there are the builders, dozens of them, who built their boats and lived their lives in the Adirondacks. Who were they, what were they like, what were their aspirations? What materials and construction techniques did they choose and why?

And then there are the users. Who were they? Did they want boats for business or pleasure? Were they interested in portability, cargo capacity, speed? How did their preferences change over time and why?

Ms. Bond provides answers to all of these questions. Small wonder the job of writing the book required so much time, even with the considerable resources of the Adirondack Museum at hand.

In addition to the narrative history and boat catalog, the book contains several other valuable segments: 1) an informative 7,000-word history of Adirondack waterways by Philip G. Terrie, author of Forever Wild: Environmental Aesthetics and the Adirondack Forest Preserve; 2) a list of some 200 builders who have built boats used in the Adirondacks Ñ the list shows birth and death dates, builder location and type of boat built; 3) an appendix containing plans for nine types of boats discussed in the text, including the Wee Lassie, the Arkansaw Traveler Open Model Canoe, the Nomad Model D Decked Sailing Canoe. the St. Lawrence skiff, the Adirondack guideboat, the Rushton Model #109 lapstrake Pleasure Rowboat, a "Tin Rowboat," and the Idem Class Sail Racing Sloop; 4) a glossary of 100-plus terms relating to the construction of small craft (a vital aid to some of us); and 5) a recommended bibliography for those interested in further research.

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