The first frost of the season in Hood River


Canoe- Shop 101: Basic Principles of Canoe building

Principle #2- Generally speaking, you will want to give yourself longer than 4 weeks to build your wood strip canoe, especially if this is your first. It can be done, but one should expect putting in many 16 hour days in a row in order to work with such a strict time budget. If at all possible, build your canoe in a small rainy town several thousand miles away from your home so that you will have absolutely no distractions… Well, maybe just one…


The thing about mistakes is that you only learn from them after you have made them. In retrospect, you wisely say, “I wouldn’t do it that way”, or “You should do this.” Needless to say, my second canoe will be built with much more time and labor-saving insight than this canoe. Still, no canoe builder has ever been happier to build a canoe.

Most canoe builders temporarily staple the long wood strips to the frame to hold them in place while gluing. After the glue is dry, you pull out the stapes and fill the tiny holes. However, I decided that I wanted this canoe to be visually flawless. No staples- No little holes. The canoe builder across the river in White Salmon told me it would take more time and I decided it was worth it.

So instead of stapling the wood strips to the frame, I have been using a complex system of vice grips, clamps, tape, shims, and improvised Norwegian clamping systems in order to hold the wood strips tightly together strip by strip while the glue dries. It works like this- I lay down my line of glue on the strip that I am about to attach. Then I lay it on the frame and frantically clamp, tape, grip, and manipulate any system I can to keep the wood tight to the previous piece before the glue sets up.

This process is much more difficult than it may sound. The wood is not simply being laid one piece on top of the other. It follows the hull of the boat, so each piece has to be bent outwards in the middle and back in at each end. In addition to the bending, the wood strip must also be twisted. At the bow and the stern the strips remain vertical, but then as you bend the wood towards the middle of the hull you must also twist it so that the strip is now laying horizontally in the middle and then vertically again at the other end. Sometimes you really have to fight with the wood in order for it to twist AND bend to the shape of the boat. The wood simply doesn’t want to do it; it’s just not natural. It’s like forcing my uncle Dave to fit into a string bikini. It will fit… but it’s not easy.
Dave "donning now his gay apparel" last Christmas

The factor that complicates this process is that I have chosen to use sitka spruce while most canoes are made from red cedar. Cedar is generally used because it is less dense than sitka spruce, so it is much easier to work with when you have to bend and twist it. I chose the spruce for the color and also because it is stronger than the cedar. In the end, I will have had a bit more headache but Mr. Childs will have a stronger boat.

Once we laid the wood for the sides of the canoe I decided that I would use staples for the bottom. With less than one week left, this decision has proven to be a miracle. Using the stapling system, yesterday Tom and I laid out almost as many strips in one day as I have in the past week by avoiding staples. Right now it is Sunday and I am flying back to Philadelphia this Thursday which means I have to have the canoe done by Wednesday night.

Today we will finish laying the wood and then I hope to stay up late in order to sand the outside of the boat. Tomorrow we will begin the fiber glassing process. A fiber glass cloth is laid out over the entire boat and then epoxy is saturated in to the material. Three coats of epoxy are added and the cloth and epoxy dries absolutely clear so that the wood finish is completely unmarked.

Then Tuesday we will flip it over and sand the inside. Wednesday we will fiber glass the inside and then I will hop on a plane back to Philadelphia early Thursday morning. Kristen will fly in to Philly on Sunday night and never be any the wiser that I have been living a double life for the past month.

Living a secret life has been fun, but I cannot wait to let Kristen in on the big secret. I will fly back to Hood River in the first week of December and then drive it down to Tucson. I’ll leave the canoe with Mr. Childs and I’ll ask Kristen to live this life- no more secrets- with me.