A Rare Fish Returns - Building the Sturgeon Nosed Canoe
First splash. The sturgeon nosed canoe returns to modern waters.
Last summer I got a phone call about a traditional canoe that I had built and was selling. The caller was kinda sorta interested in the canoe, but what he really wanted to do was to convince me to build a canoe that his people, the Sinixt, had once used. If you haven't heard of the Sinixt (pron. Sin-ite) neither had I nor did I know what a traditional Sinixt canoe looked like. Until he mentioned that it was a sturgeon nosed canoe. And that I knew - unique enough that once seen, it is not forgotten.
As we talked, he introduced himself as Harry Wong and he gave me a quick family history and how it was that he was tied to this canoe. His mother was Sinixt and father Chinese, accounting for the Wong surname. His grandfather, Alex Christian, is very well known among the Sinixts to this day as the last person to leave their ancestral lands, from what is now known as Brilliant, British Columbia. And when Alex Christian departed, he left in a sturgeon nosed canoe, paddling down the Columbia River. For Harry, that event from over a hundred years ago had played an important part in the evolution of his family.
Sinixt and dog in sturgeon nosed canoe.
Photo: Arrow Lakes Historical Society
http://www.firstnations.eu/invasion/sinixt.htm
But as interesting as a build like this might be, I already had a number of boats on my todo list and so I wasn't sure that I could afford to get side tracked off on to someone else's project. I do well enough getting side tracked on my own. So I didn't say yes, but I didn't say no. Always enthusiastic about the prospect of the project, Harry would call me from time to time and touch base and so finally in March of 2011 I decided to pull the trigger and do a skin-on-frame version of a sturgeon nosed canoe.
We finally met in person for the first time in a coffee shop where Harry gave me the down payment for the boat-to-be as well as a book on the history of the Sinixt (The Geography of Memory by Eileen Delehanty Pearkes). The book contained old photos of sturgeon nosed canoes that I had never seen before and even pictures of Harry's grandfather, Alex Christian. I read the book cover to cover and pulled together everything else I could find about the boat. And along the way, I learned a bit about the people who made and paddled them.
Bringing Choices Together
In building a replica-interpretation one might think that all that a person is doing is making a copy of an old boat, but it always seems to expand into much more than just "building a boat". Because there is no assembly line for these types of builds and very little in the way of plans, each boat seems to take on a life of its own. There are always so many questions to be answered about building techniques, materials, and design.
The ends on a sturgeon nosed canoe almost create the illusion that the boat is upside down.
With the sturgeon nosed canoe the first question usually concerns the stems. We build and paddle a replica to try and answer just such questions as this. In the book "Canoe", John Jennings notes that these boats were made of bark in a latitude far south of where bark canoes were usually made. In the area of what is now Eastern Washington State, just north and south of the Canadian border, the birches are too small to make a canoe hull the way the more northern peoples could. And so the other types of bark such as spruce, pine, balsam and fir as well as smaller birch were used. And whereas the grain of birch bark grows around the tree - convenient for crafting a rounded hull shape - the conifers that were used grow their bark lengthwise. The theory is that rolling the bark and stitching the ends in the way that they did was was necessary to seal the ends up.So perhaps it was the materials used that dictated the design. But for some reason when canvas became available the boats were made using a canvas skin instead of bark, but retained the same ram ends. David Thompson wrote in his journals that they were more stable in the wind and the Indians he talked with claimed that the ram ends helped tracking in swift water. Perhaps then the ram ended design suited the local conditions or else it is just what the people who built the boats knew. But in the end the choices that all boat builders have to make are what connects all builders together, around the world and throughout time. And that is why boat building is about so much more than just building a boat.
The Build
SOF boats are popular because they are light, flexible, easy to build, and inexpensive. I started building them when I was looking for an alternative to the ubiquitous fiberglass boats. They are a quick way to recreate and study the original SOF craft, build experimental designs, or to copy boats originally built from the "other" materials. The steps to building a SOF boat is to lash and wooden peg together a lattice frame, cover it with fabric, and then fill in the weave with some sort of waterproofing - usually a paint or epoxy. When you are done, even though it may look like a bunch of sticks all tied together, you are rewarded with a quality product that is light, fast, and guaranteed to attract lots of attention at the boat launch.
Building a replica-interpretation as opposed to a strict replica allows me to keep an open mind when dealing with materials, design and tools. The original builders used what was available to them and I do too. The overlap that occurs between the old and the new is a learning opportunity. I decided to build this frame using mostly western red cedar because it is a local wood that the original canoe frames were built from and is light and rot resistant. The thwart and the rub rails were built from pine and ash respectively for strength. The wood for the ribs were made from ash, for it's ease in bending. For lashings I use artificial sinew, a waxed nylon line used by leather workers and now popular among SOF builders. It is made of fibrous nylon strands and stretches when pulled, creating an extremely tight lash.
I considered using canvas for the skin but chose nylon for several reasons. First of all it is more rot resistant than canvas, and aesthetically an amber colored translucent skin is created when painted with oil based polyurethane. It is easy to imagine this attractive skin as being a split rawhide, an effect that I like. Much as I would have wanted I didn't choose bark for the skin, not having a freshly downed pine in my yard. But knowing that many of these boats built in later years were made from canvas and built as SOF, I felt that in a way I was taking the next step in sturgeon nose canoe evolution. It's a comforting thought anyway.
Gunwales and ribs start the build off.
The finished frame, oiled and for the "saran-wrap test".
After I have admired my handiwork enough I oil the frame with tung oil and move on to the next step, which is guaranteed to raise eyebrows at the beach. The craft is shrink wrapped, floated, and paddled around for 5 or 10 minutes - or until the water gets too deep inside. This time honored procedure is affectionately dubbed the "saran-wrap test" by SOF builders and is done because it is far better to find any mistakes in the frame build now than after it has been skinned and painted.And it is at this point, that as much as I'd like to skip over the most embarrassing part of this build, I must come clean.
On my saran-wrap test I found that I had made the hull so round that it rolled like a log. And to make matters worse I had tied ALL of the stringers to the ribs. It was a real heartbreak to cut apart everything, re-bend new ribs, mill new sheathing battens and start all over again. The second time around I lashed only enough of the stringers to get through the saran-wrap test. But you know, this is exactly what the test is for. And anyway it's always so much better the second time. Right? (Note to self: tie ONLY the minimum necessary to do the water trial).
Shrink wrapped and paddled to test the frame. It turns out that the hull was too rounded and made the craft roll like a log.
Next the skin goes on. There are a lot of different coverings, but I like to use ballistic nylon, called so because it was once used for bullet proof vests. I'm not keen on testing that out, but it is pretty tough. The edges need to be melted to keep it from fraying so I use a soldering iron with the tip filed to an edge to cut it with.As you can see in the picture the fabric is rough cut and laced in place with mason line across the gunwales. The ends are then sewn up. First they are just basted into place and then trimmed with the hot knife to about 1/2" away from the basting. After that I go over it one more time with a simple whip stitch. There are a wide variety of threads that can be used, but I use dental floss. It's also nylon and it works!
With a nylon skin, once the skin is sewn on it is wetted out and ironed. Wisely, I picked up an old iron at the thrift shop and did not "borrow" my wife's. The nylon shrinks up like a drum and in fact, if it is sewn on too tightly it can actually break and ruin the frame. It's one mistake I have yet to make, but I have received some pretty nerve wracking cracks and pops on some of my builds.
Melting holes with a soldering iron allows the skin to be laced up like a shoe.
The next choice to make is what kind of finish to put on the skin. I use oil based polyurethane floor paint or similarly, spar varnish. Nothing sticks to nylon so it is important to get the paint into the weave. I've never had a problem with this and have never found it necessary to thin the paint. My method is to use a small roller to apply and tip it out with a brush. I used to put on 2 or three coats and it worked fine, but on my last several boats I upped that to 6 or 7 coats in order to fill the weave of the fabric. The finish is smoother, more attractive, the skin is noticeably tougher, and the boat glides better on the water.Once the final coat is on it's time to clamp the skin in place with the rub strips. Although I don't use metal on these boats, here is the one exception. I countersink holes in the rub rail and insert stainless screws. The screws go through the rub rail, into the out-wale, through the rib end, and into the in-wale. I know that some people will also lay down a line of stainless steel staples along the skin and into the out-wale before attaching the rub rail, but I have not done that in my canoes and have had no problems. It probably wouldn't hurt but the clamping action of the rub rail against the out-wale seems to work.
The skin is wetted out and then an iron or heat gun is used to shrink the fabric.
On this day, the rain came out to wet the fabric for me.
Bungs will be trimmed and the rub rail spar varnished
The Paddle
Traditional water craft deserves a traditional paddle. They usually evolved together for a reason and are an important part of understanding the whole story about the craft. After all, we wouldn't describe a modern speed boat with out discussing its engine! Of course since my boats are not replicas in the strictest sense of the word there is some leeway in the paddle as well. In the case of this canoe I went with the design in Chappelle's line drawings (Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America) but laminated the shaft from two pieces of ash for strength and to control warp. The wings of the paddle were attached with an ash spline.
I won't go into the details of paddle construction here but just to say that I was really under a time constraint as I only had a few more days to finish and deliver the boat to Harry. The paddle really came together nicely and although I wish I would have had slightly better proportions in the blade area, it worked fine and looked great. And the second one will be better. Right?
Launch Day
On launch day, August 9, 2011 Harry and I met and went to a calm place on the lake and paddled for an hour and a half. We switched off and soloed twice and then we paddled double for a while. Unfortunately this is all the experience that I have in the boat so I can't really critique it well. But it seemed to paddle well and was somewhat faster than I had anticipated. When one person paddles it raises the bow and the stern acts like a fin, making it track well. It seemed a little difficult to turn but perhaps that would have gotten better with experience. When two people paddle the bow sinks down into the water and where we were paddling it picked up some seaweed, as I expected that it might.
Harry's first trial. Maybe he is thinking about his grandfather, or maybe he is just concentrating on not tipping over.
Who can say...
The builder in his creation for the first time
Post ScriptIn the short time since Harry took delivery of the boat and I posted images on the internet, a lot has happened. I've gotten numerous emails and responses on various paddling and building forums and the net keeps widening as I learn more about the boat and the people who made them. And Harry made it just in time to join the 200th anniversary celebrations for the explorer David Thompson. "Our" canoe has not been seen on those waters in many decades and made it into several newspapers and caught the attention of local historians. For many people who knew about the sturgeon nosed canoe, it was their first chance to actually see one.
Harry and his time machine, photographed on the Columbia River 200 years after David Thompson first arrived.
And in a strange twist of fate, as Harry's sturgeon nosed canoe begins it's life, it has become the last boat that I'll be able to build for a while. I've lost my work shop where I've been building since 2005. But I've still got more dreams on the drawing board and definitely more boats to build. I'm still putting some final touches on my own personal kayak while cleaning out the last remnants of wood and fabric from the double garage I was fortunate enough to use to feed my passion. I've been so busy building for more than a year that I haven't actually been out on the water much. That is definitely going to change. For the near future anyway, I'm going paddling.Post Script
In September 2011, Harry took the canoe to several festivals and events. He showed it off, paddled it, and let others paddle it. Here are some newspaper articles and other Honorable Mentions:
- Tribute to Thompson - 200 years ago (Mobile Edition)
- Celebrating David Thompson's Kootenay arrival
- Indigenous Boats
- Marking Thompson's travels
- The print version of the Nelson Star (pdf file)
- Front page of the Valley Voice (pdf file)