The tag in your photo is shiny because it was nickel plated. It certainly looks like an original, so I believe your canoe is a Lakefield with several original tags and one replacement. Lakefield serial numbers are an enigma at present. I've tried to collect up as many serial numbers with dimensions and other data as possible, and there aren't very many on the list. Yours would seem to be a model #143 (see catalog page above), a 16' cedar strip canoe, copper-fastened. I know of two other Lakefield 16' cedar strip canoes, copper-fastened, that have numbers starting with "18". Two Lakefields with numbers starting "2" are completely different: one is a typical cedar strip canoe like yours, but 14.5' long, and the other is a 16' racing canoe. Another 16' racing model's number starts with "1". There's still more, but the bottom line is that the first digit doesn't appear to be model number. I don't think the second number is a model number either, because there are Lakefields whose second numbers are 17, 113, 177, 277, 296... none of which are model numbers as far as I know. So unless the company radically changed model numbers at some point, neither the first nor the second number can be a model number. The third number seems to always correlate with length, so that one at least is easy. Perhaps the first number is the year built (i.e., "3" represents 1903). The company went through changes over the years:
1892 – 1904 Strickland & Co. – Lakefield Canoe Works
1904 – 1911 Lakefield Canoe & Mfg. Co.
1911 – 1919 Lakefield Canoe Co. Ltd
1919 – 1938 Lakefield Canoe & Boat Co. Limited
1939 – 1948 Lakefield Boat & Manufacturing Co.
1948 – 1962 Lakefield Boats Limited
1962 – 1967 Rilco Industries
With all first digits ranging from "0" to "18" in my list of tagged Lakefield canoes, if those numbers represent years built then the "Lakefield Canoe Co" tag would have been used through three versions of the company. I have no evidence that this was the case, so I'm still skeptical about the first digit being the year made... but maybe?
Michael