Canoe-shop 101: Principles of Canoe Building

Principle #1- Make sure you know what you are getting yourself into. Costs and time involved are significant, to say the least. Count on a few 14 hour days, about ¼ lb of sawdust in your lungs, countless splinters and one gashed index finger. If you are building the canoe in a secret location on the other side of the country prepare for the locals in your temporary villa to say, “You’re the guy!” and frequently refer to you as “the canoe guy.” They will make jokes about how crazy you are and wonder why you didn’t just take her out for a fancy dinner and a play.

Don’t worry. If you are crazy enough to build a canoe in exchange for the hand of a charming woman, chances are you are learning something about love. The costs and time involved, though great, will almost seem inconsequential when you hear her voice at night. In the end, if you show her even the tiniest picture of how precious she is and how thankful you are for her, any and all costs incurred will be instantly reimbursed. When you finish, you will wonder how you ever ended up with someone like her for only the cost of a handmade canoe.

The Canoe
Week one in Hood River has come to an end. The canoe is right on schedule. Last night the canoe finally began to take shape as I finished aligning the moldings onto the strongback. This essentially is the skeleton of the canoe. The strongback is a long, thin table that runs the length of the canoe (in this case, 16 ft.) which the moldings are then aligned off of every 13 inches.

The wooded strips are then run along the outside of the moldings for the entire horizontal length of the canoe. Yesterday I spent most of the day making these wood strips, which will be the canoe itself. For the wood, I’ve chosen Sitka Spruce. I have chosen it for its light weight, it’s light color, and strength. It is a tiny bit heavier than red cedar, which is often used, but I have chosen the spruce for its strength just in case Mr. Childs wants to take the canoe on some rougher waters.

The Sitka Spruce comes in 1X6 planks, which are then cut down to create many ¼ inch strips. Now that the strips are so thin, they can easily be bent to conform to the curves of the canoe’s geometry. By the end of the week, you should be able to see the actual canoe put together in its rough form.

So that's how it all started. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I agreed to work on that project with her. I had no idea that it would send me here- to Hood River, Oregon- to undertake the building of a handmade canoe for her father, or rather, for her. Mr. Childs gets a handmade canoe, and I get to ask for the hand of his delightful daughter. Pretty good deal if you ask me.

I didn't take it seriously at first; this whole canoe thing. When I was first told about it, marriage seemed to be a thought that was a long way off. And the whole idea seemed ridiculous to me. Could Mr. Childs actually be serious? I mean, it's kind of funny to say that your daughter has a brideprice, but come on! Who does that? And who actually builds the canoe?

But then I started thinking. This is the best deal I am ever going to get in my entire life. A canoe for Kristen?? I would build a thousand canoes if it meant I could go through all the adventures of life with her by my side. If one handmade wooden strip canoe is all it is going to take for me to end up with this most beautiful, kind, intelligent, Godly woman, then I was going to take him up on his offer before he changed his mind. The fool! If he had required it, I would have built him a yacht.

Most people think I am in Philadelphia right now. Most people are wrong. When I bought my plane ticket three weeks ago the only person who knew about it was my friend Piko. He was the first one in on the grandest deception of my life. Now only a handful of people know what I am really up to.

I suppose it all started one sunny afternoon in early August. "She has a brideprice, you know", my friend Shi told me. "Her dad said that whatever guy wants to marry Kristen is going to have to build him a canoe. So you'd better start working."

At the time my romantic involvement with Kristen had only existed for a day or two. We had taken classes together all summer and hung out a few times, though mostly for strictly academic purposes. And although Kristen is one of those women that when you see for the fist time you think, "wow... she is positively stunning", I did not think of her as anything more than a friend. I wasn't looking for a relationship. And besides, I thougt it was a bit cliche to go for the blonde haired blue eyed beauty. So I spent most of the summer with a deep respect and admiration for her kindness and her character, though I never thought to pursue anything more than that.

One of our classes, Principles of Language Survey, afforded us the opportunity for a different kind of meeting. With a huge term paper on a people group of our choice, we decided to work together because we would both be working in Southeast Asia in the future anyway. (For the record, it was Kristen who asked me if I wanted to work on the project together.) The last two weeks of the summer semester were spent with us together for most waking hours, books all around but most of the time learning more about each other than linguistics or people groups.

One night in particular I remember pulling a late night "working" on "the project" with Kristen and having more fun than I thought possible. I walked her back to her room, said goodnight, and then walked through the night back to my house thinking, "it's all over." There was nothing I could do about it. I really really liked Kristen. I didn't want to stop working with her.