Dr. Gordon Fisher

I have never built a guideboat in the truly traditional manner.  The ribs and stems for my boats were made of laminates formed by gluing together thin strips of wood in a mold that had the shape of the rib or stem.  The main reason for making the ribs this way was that I could never find someone who was willing to part with the flitches, or sections of spruce roots, that could form the strong, but light, ribs and stems.

I was delighted when Keith Austin of Blue Line Hardwoods in Long Lake offered to sell me enough flitches to build a boat.  Brian, the owner of Blue Line, then offered to deliver the flitches, and material for a bottom board, to my home in Delaware.  True to his word, these items arrived last October.

My friend Jeff says that “An adventure starts with questions and uncertainties”.  This was surely the case since I had no experience building a boat using flitches or “roots” or “stumps” as the native Adirondackers call them.  How many flictches are needed to build a guideboat?  I really didn’t know.  I knew the trick would be to align the rib patterns as closely to the path of the grain in each root.  How easy would that be? Would the flow of the grain in the flitches accommodate the varying shape of the ribs as one moves from midships to the stems?  I was about to find out.

Keith sent me fourteen flitches.  One of my former bosses would have called them a “dog’s breakfast”.  I never asked him what he meant by the term but I assumed he meant a mixed bag.  They were indeed a mixed bag.  I wondered if fourteen flitches were enough to do the job (there are a total of 48 ribs and two stems in my boat).  That question would nag me throughout the entire process of “getting out” the ribs and stems.

The flitches had various deformities that I would have to work around.  There were checks, or splits, knots, and worm holes.  Some flitches were superb while others not so good.  But as I began to work with them I found that “ugliness is only skin deep”

The flitches were taken from Adirondack red spruce stumps.  Red spruce grows only at higher elevations and usually grows at a very slow rate.  Hence the grain is very tight.  I found the spruce to have a lovely white color causing me to immediately think of ivory.  It is a delight to work with being very forgiving of the woodworker’s bumbling.  It made me realize, once again, why I prefer to work wood with hand tools.  It is a sensory thing that flows from the wood through the tool to the craftsman.

So the first step in getting out ribs is to lay some patterns on a flitch so that the curve of the rib follows the grain as closely as possible.  You want to absolutely avoid cross grain, or grain that is perpendicular to the curve of the rib.  Cross grain would cause a dangerously weak area in the finished rib.  With these flitches avoiding cross grain was not difficult.  Even as the ribs began to be more upright at each end of the boat I could find flitches that would give me a grain pattern the followed the arm of the rib and yet gathered to become horizontal at the foot.

Here I lay out the patterns on a flitch.

The next step is to cut out what I call a “bundle”  The flitches are a little over 2″ thick so, with care, I should be able to get four ribs from one bundle.  That is what I need because the boat is symmetrical.  There are identical ribs fore and aft.  There is little margin for error as I extract them from a bundle since I want my finished ribs to be 7/16″ thick.

Here I am cutting out a stem bundle.

The next step is to rip the stem bundle in two or a rib bundle into four rough cut ribs.

The same goes for the rib bundles.

I am using a finger board to prevent any wandering of the band saw blade.  I must get good straight cuts if I am to get four rough cut rib blanks from a bundle.

I then surface plane the rough cut ribs down to their final thickness of 7/16″.

That rough cut rib must be given its final shape.  This is where a lot of hand tool work must be done.  First the shape of the rib is transferred to the rib blank from the pattern and the band saw is used to cut away much of the excess.

The hull side of the rib is given its final shape using a block plane and long board.

A final smoothing is done using the long board.

The rib hull surface must be perpendicular to the sides.  Here I am checking that with a small square.

It is very important to get the correct angle between the rib foot and the arm.  Even a small deviation in this angle will cause larger and larger shifts of the rib out of position on the hull as one moves up the arm.

Now the inside surface of each rib must be shaped.  Below are the tools I used to do this.  They are a Veritas spoke shave, two sizes of contour planes, a cabinet scraper, long board for sanding, and a home-made curved sanding block.  Then, of course, my old faithful Black and Decker Shop Mate.  I couldn’t live without it.

Here I am shaping the inside surface of a rib using one of the contour planes.

Here are some of the ribs that have reached this stage of execution.

I still need to round off the top surface of each rib and shape each foot.

Getting out ribs is a big deal.  But my concerns at the start were ill founded and I have a great set of ribs to build a boat.

Next time I think I will switch gears and talk about hunting from a guideboat.

In my last post I said that I had decided to build another guideboat.  This will be the fourth guideboat that I will have built in the traditional fashion.  I said that I would do things differently this time.  This was prompted by remembering all the work done in the past to make the laminated ribs and stems for a boat.  It seemed to take months and it probably did.  In the end they are worth the effort since they are stronger, yet as light, as those made from spruce roots.  Some people find that appearance of the laminated components very attractive with their dark and light bands.   I was forced to use laminated ribs in my earlier boats because spruce roots simply couldn’t be found.

That changed when Keith Austin at Blue Line Hardwoods in Long Lake said he would sell me spruce root flitches (roots) for making the ribs and stems for my latest boat.  What a great idea, I thought.   Now I would be able to build a guideboat truly as the old time builders did.  I would find out how to lay out the ribs and stems to follow the grain of the root and see what other challenges there are in using this old way of doing things.  I knew  that these slabs, taken from stumps, are truly a natural material.  As such they would present some surprises.  I was not disappointed.

Blue Line Hard Wood also had a nice plank of quarter sawn pine sixteen feet long and ten inches wide that I could use for the bottom board.  Up to now I had had to scarf two shorter planks together to get the length I needed.  Scarfing works fine but is not easily done with stock this size.

Brian, the proprietor of Blue Line Hardwoods, said he would deliver the flitches and bottom board stock to me in Delaware.  Since it would be a month or more before he could arrange for delivery, I decided to make a set of seat frames for the new boat.   This is putting the cart before the horse but I had the time so why not.  I made the seat frames before making the boat the last time around so why not now too.

Like most things involved with guideboats nothing comes together at right angles (except the middle seat)  This complicates matters since a little misalignment on one rail or stile throws everything off.  I’m using the cabinet maker’s convention here; the stile is the vertical piece of the frame and the rail the horizontal one.

So we start by cutting dados (grooves) in the stiles.  This is the first step in making the tenons.  This is most easily done using the table saw and the miter gage set at the proper  angle.  Here we go.

The miter gage is behind my hands so you can’t see it.  It is set so as to give the proper angle to the dado cut.  I have ganged two stiles together so that each gets an identical cut.

Next we cut away the excess with a band saw to produce the tenon.

Before  I did some hard thinking about how to do this tenoning thing I bought a jig from Delta to make tenons.  Here it is:

It is definitely not worth the money.  You use it with a Delta dado blade assembly that makes the tenon with two passes.  The stile is clamped into it and passed over the rotating dado blade.  The problem I had with it was that the dado blade assembly did not produce a clean straight cut but instead a sort of a “lip” at the shoulder.

The completed tenons are squared up with the rails as shown below.

The mortises in the rails are done next.  To do these I use my plunge router.  I made a jig consisting of a box, open at each end, that had a spring-loaded panel on one side.  This arrangement held the rail centered over the router’s bit but allowed it to be moved under the rotating bit.  It enabled me to plunge the bit into the rail to the proper depth and move the rail against the spinning bit until the mortise was as long as the tenon was wide.  The set-up is shown below.

Any irregularities in the mortise are cleaned up using a chisel.

The tenons need to be rounded on each end so they will fit into the mortise.  I use my long board to sand them into shape.

There is some backing and forthing to get the four frame joints to fit properly.  Sometimes you feel you are chasing your tail in trying to get all four to match up.  You no sooner get one or two joints to fit together nicely when the others go awry.  After some perserverence things come together and  it is time to glue up the frames. I use resorcinol glue for that job.

Now to tackle the seat back for the stern seat.  The seat back for the stern seat is unusual in that the top of it is rounded.  You start making it by laying it out and cutting out the shape of the top on the band saw.  A dado is cut into it just as with the stiles.  In the case of the stern seat the tenons, which are now on the frames, fit into the uprights, or stiles.  Here the dado is being cut into the upper seat back.

The excess is removed with a band saw to form the tenon.  The next step is to form the curve in the seat back.  You start by cutting away the excess with a band saw.

I use my block plane with the rounded sole to complete the rounding of the seat back.

Once all the frames and seat back are glued up the next thing is to drill the holes for the cane.  The holes should be 1/4″ in diameter and 5/8″ apart.  It is best to lay them out with a compass.  Here they are being drilled into the middle seat frame.

I round off the top side holes just to make it easier on the cane.  I use my portable electric drill and a countersink bit to do that.

Time now to apply several coats of spar varnish and they are ready for caning.  I found out long ago that I didn’t have the where with all for caning and I gladly pay for someone who does.  Here are the seat frames ready for the caner.

Next time the flitches arrive.  Will there be enough to make 48 ribs and two stems?

 

I have always admired the Lie Nielsen hand tools.  They seemed to me to be the Cadillac of the trade.  When I saw them demonstrated at Hearne Hardwoods this fall I decided that the low angle block plane would make a fine Christmas present.  Sure enough Santa put one under the tree for me.

So what is so special about a Lie Nielsen (LN) hand tool, or especially a block plane.  I had built a number of boats using a Stanley block plane and they came out just fine. Well when I took my new LN for a spin I realized what an incredible tool it is.  First, let’s recount the difficulties with using my old Stanley.  When it needed sharpening it came apart easily enough but went back together kicking and screaming.  Adjusting the blade so that you got the same depth of cut you had originally was a trial and error sort of endeavor. You also had to worry about the blade being square (there is an adjustment toggle thing on the old Stanley that squares it up).  The mouth was adjustable but not easily.  Minor adjustments on the fly are frustrating.

Here is the new and the old.

To sharpen the blade of the Lie Nielsen is so easy.  You rotate the spin wheel holding the blade down, remove the bronze cap iron and out she comes.  I gave the iron a modest honing with my water stone and plopped it back in place.  There was no need to square the iron and it went right back to its original depth setting thanks to a groove on the iron that mated with the blade adjusting nut.

Mouth opening was an easy adjustment too.  It was so easy that there is now no barrier to adjusting to the right setting while in the midst of a delicate job.

Here are two views of the Lie Nielsen low angle block plane.

It is great to see such a quality tool made in the US.  The Lie Nielsen motto is “Heirloom Quality Tools.”.  Sure enough.

I can’t wait to really engage this fine tool.

Next time I start my next guideboat.

The origins of the Adirondack guideboat have always puzzled me.  Did it evolve entirely within the Adirondacks?  I believe it did.  The early Adirondack settlers were dependent on boats to move about in a land that was devoid of any other mode of transportation except foot paths.  The chains of lakes allowed them to travel from the south, Old Forge, to the north, Saranac Lake, a distance of 90 miles, relatively easily.

By necessity the early settlers became proficient at building boats.  Their first boats were sturdy, but quite heavy, row boats.  They weighed over 100 lbs.  These boats were not hefted across the Adirondack carries (portages) but left at one end of the carry.   The boat man would pick up another boat left at at the opposite end by his neighbor and go on his merry way.  Apparently there were enough boats to go around to make this scheme work.

Evidence of the evolution of the guideboat is hard to come by.  The Adirondack natives were too busy surviving to do much writing about their boats.  We are left to those who visited the Adirondacks during the 1800’s to provide insight into how this small craft evolved.

The very earliest physical record of the early boats I call the “bookcase boat”.  It was collected by Franklin Brandreth and resides at Brandreth Park near Raquette Lake.

The boat survives only because it was made into a piece of furniture.  To do so the stern portion was sacrificed.  Nevertheless, much can be learned from it.  Painted on the deck is an inscription “1848”.  There are six sets of ribs 7/8″ wide on 14″ centers.  There are four planks on each side and they vary in thickness from 1/2″ at the midships to 3/8″ at the bow.  There are thole blocks that received thole pins that held the oars.  It has a bottom board that is 10″ at its widest point.  There are rounded notches in the gunwale that could have held a carrying yoke.

So we have in the bookcase boat a prototype of later guideboats.  That the bookcase boat was not an anomaly is shown by a sketch by Richards of a guide’s boat he did in 1853.

This boat also has four planks per side.  It is square-ended and has more ribs than the bookcase boat.  The oarsman rows from a plank seat and the oars are now pinned rather than held by thole pins. It is square-ended with a so-called tombstone transom due to its rounded shape.

This style of Adirondack boat may have gone essentially unchanged for a long time if it weren’t for a new arrival on the North Country scene, the wealthy sportsman.  These men came mainly from the large eastern seaboard cities because they had heard of the vast opportunities for hunting and fishing that the Adirondacks offered.  But they needed guides and the guides needed a boat specifically designed for guiding.  It had to be light enough for one man to carry yet able to carry two men, their hunting and fishing gear, and other paraphernalia that would allow them to remain in the wilderness for a week or two.

An example of these new guide’s boats is shown below.

These boats were of lapstrake construction, that is their planks overlapped along each edge much like a clapboards on a house.  They are square-ended with a small transom.  An example of such a transom is shown by a boat built by the guide Reuben Cary around 1870.  Cary cleverly used a carefully selected crook , or knee, of a spruce tree to form the transom.  The broad face of the transom was formed by  exploiting roots running at right angles  to form the fan shape of the main body of the transom.  At right angles to the fan he shaped another root to form a stem-like appendage.  All this from one main root!

Here is an photo of a lapstrake square-ended guideboat taken by Seneca Ray Stoddard around 1890.  Its getting some rough treatment!

The square-ended lapstrake guideboat was to undergo two major modifications before reaching maturity.  Both of these changes occurred about 1880.  The transom disappeared in favor of a double-ended boat.  This may have been a practical move.  With the stern seat set so far back it was difficult to trim the boat.  With someone in the stern seat, the stern would often drag on sand bars and such.

The reason for the other change, from lapstrake to a  smooth-skinned hull, is harder to explain.  I have heard that it increased the speed, made the boat quieter, and reduced weight.  Perhaps so but all those incremental improvements would not have offset the time and craftsmanship necessary to achieve such a result.  My guess that it was strictly for aesthetics and beauty sold.

It took some time for the old square-ended guideboats to disappear from the scene.  Here are some square-enders that seem to be mixed in with the newer double-enders at Camp Pine Knot on Raquette lake.  The photo was taken by Seneca Ray Stoddard around 1890.

The boat reached perfection as a double-ended, smooth skinned small wooden craft in the 1890’s and into the 1900’s before its time passed.  Here is one example, built by Allison at the Adirondack Museum. It is a reproduction of one built by Warren Cole in 1905.

Next time I start on my fourth guideboat.  What will I do differently this time?

 

 

Last time I promised to share with you the most exquisitely built guideboat I have yet seen.  It is a so-called Raider, a guideboat class that is shorter than the common guideboat length of 15 to 16 feet long.   Raiders where supposedly built to make “raids” on remote ponds and lakes where the fishing was worth the trip.

Willard Hanmer pointed out one of the major drawbacks of these smaller boats.   Here is what he had to say about them in 1961:

“Sixteen (feet) was the standard length (for a guideboat) and that seemed to be the ideal boat for racing or carrying a load or anything else.  Speed you never could gain over sixteen feet, and you would drop off sharply on anything under sixteen feet.  For instance, the twelve, thirteen, and fourteen foot models I build today are nice, light boats to get back where the trout are supposed to be, but you can’t make speed in them.  People aren’t looking for that.  Nobody rows any distance anymore.”

Let’s look at some examples of Raiders.  Here is one built by John Blanchard of Raquette Lake in 1935.

Blanchard’s boat, a beauty, hangs in the guideboat hall of the Adirondack Museum.  It is 13′ 6″ long, has a beam of 38″, and weighs 53 lbs.

Here is another Raider, this one built by Ira and Ben Parsons of Old forge in 1905.

It is 14′ 3″ long, has a beam of 39 1/2″, and weighs 57 lbs.  It is distinguished by partial ribs fore and aft that do not extend to the bottom board.

If you have been paying attention to the vital statistics of these boats you will have noticed an anomaly, or at least something odd.  They both weigh about the same as a guideboat of the most common length of fifteen to sixteen feet.  These boats generally weigh between 55 and 60 lbs.

So what is their advantage over their longer cousins since they are slower and weigh about the same?  I have no answer to that question.

Finally the guideboat that wins my vote for the best I have ever encountered.  I came across it during a visit to Blue Line Hardwoods in Long Lake this past summer.  Keith Austin had just about finished restoring it.

So what is so riveting about this particular boat.  Let’s look at the inside of the hull.

This, to me, is an extraordinary sight.  Here the ribs are accommodating a severe reverse curve in the hull. They start out with a mild upward slope, then turn away abruptly, only to come back inward again.  The planking, of course, has to follow suite.  This means that one must back out (hollow out) a plank on one side and then the other depending on its position along the hull.  That is quite a feat!  Only a very few builders would attempt to do that and fewer still could pull it off.  This sort of artistry in boat building is why some call the Adirondack guideboat the Stradivarius of wooden boats.

Here is the stern end of the Raider being restored.  Note the plank seat which may have been the original or a copy of the original.

Keith told my that this boat was built around 1900 by the Grant shop.  Its length is 12′ 6″ with a beam of 39 1/2″.  The forward rake of the stem certainly is characteristic of a Grant boat.

Keith also had to remake a set of oars for the boat.  One of the originals had snapped in two while in use.

The two oars on the left are those made by Keith while the one on the right is the original.  These oars struck me as being particularly slender, almost dainty.  They reminded me of a thoroughbred horse’s legs, built to provide maximum speed with the very least weight.

Next time: back to Seneca Ray Stoddard.

Although the preferred length of a guideboat built in the 1800’s was 15 to 16 feet, guideboats of other sizes were built to the customer’s preference.  Quite a few guideboats were built with a length overall of 12 to 14 feet.  These boats were commonly called “Raiders”.  Lewis Grant, son of Dwight Grant, told Kenneth Durant that his “Father called all guideboats with bottom boards twelve feet or less Raiders, as they were used mostly by one or two men to make a raid on a distant, hard-to-get-to lake…or river spring hole and get some real fishing.”

Here is a Stoddard photo taken of the famous guide Alvah Dunning in what looks to be a Raider guideboat.

Now Alvah was distinctly Adirondack.  His life was spent entirely in the Adirondack wilderness.  He was highly sought after as a guide and sustained himself by hunting and trapping.  By the time he was an old man in the 1890’s he had become quite a legend.

Abbie kindly sent me Alvah Dunning’s obituary which is quite revealing of his personality. It was published in The Syracuse Journal, March 12, 1902.  It reads as follows:

Famous Guide is Asphyxiated

Alvah J. Dunning inhaled illuminating gas

DEATH PURELY ACCIDENTAL

Often visited his sister in Syracuse, and is well known here—In the woods all his life

Alvah J. Dunning, the famous Adirondack guide and recluse, died from asphyxiation by inhaling illuminating gas at the Dudley house, Utica, Monday night.  The deceased was well known in Syracuse, where he often visited his sister.

The circumstances which surround his death give color to it being purely accidental.  He retired shortly after 8 o’clock Monday night and when the hotel clerk tried to arouse him yesterday morning escaping gas was discovered.  A half closed jet in Dunning’s room told the story.

Dunning was the last of the race of moose hunters of the Great North Woods.  There are now living Mitchell Sabbatis of Long lake, Sam Dunnigan of Fourth Lake, Fulton Chain, and “Old Mountain Phelps” of Keene Valley, the latter made famous by Charles Dudley Warner.

He was born near Piseco Lake, Hamilton County, about 86 years ago.  His birth was only four years after the first civilized person had ventured into the great wilderness to live.  He has lived in the woods ever since.

At the close of the war of 1812 Scout Dunning removed with his wife from the valley of the Mohawk into Lake Pleasant and Piseco lake country and there became famous as a trapper and hunter as he had been an Indian fighter.  He showed the stock he came from by starting in with his father as a hunter and trapper at the age of six years, so that for 80 years he followed such a life, a record that seems to be without a parallel.  It is said of him that he guided the first party of white hunters that ever sought the Raquette lake region for sport, although his was only 11 years old at the time and the region was then virtually unexplored.

Dunning remained in the vicinity of Piseco lake for many years and through that long term of struggle between Indians and native hunters which first characterized the development of the Fulton Chain country.

His first home on Raquette Lake was on Osprey Island, at present the magnificent summer home of J. H. Ladew of New York.  Later he removed to a log hut at the south shore of Raquette Lake, and there lived the characteristic life of a woodsman.

The authorities of the State of New York found him an aggressive squatter, who made game laws of his own and kept them as he saw fit.  To a certain extent Dunning was an outlaw, yet his violations were never prosecuted.  He had trouble with other hunters and trappers of the region who alleged that he stole from their traps.

Dunning sold his squatter’s rights to railroad officials for a handsome sum and his hut where he had entertained former President Grover Cleveland and other noted men, is now the site of a railroad station.

He then started on a long trail to the Rockies, thinking he could find solitude in the far west. In his eighty-fourth year he turned his back on the Adirondack mountains and set out for parts unknown.

The scout went to the Dakotas, where he found many wild and beautiful places.  After a time he became discontented and returned to the Adirondacks.  The venerable guide lost much of his vigor and it was predicted that he would die of a broken heart.

When he returned from the West he located on Golden beach on the northwest shore of Raquette Lake and had another hut on Silver Beach.  He fished and hunted and did a few little errands about the cabins of Collis P. Huntington, William West Durant, Lieutenant Governor Woodruff, J. Pierpont Morgan, and some of the others.  In the summer he made enough to maintain him throughout the winter.  But the winters were no long passed at Raquette Lake.  He devoted much time to travel.

Dunning was kind, steady and faithful and a pleasant companion, for he had an endless fund of stories.

Next time, more on Raiders and the most exquisite guideboat I have yet seen.

As mentioned in the last post, Long Lake cherishes its history.  The town makes sure that its history is preserved and passed on.  For as long as I can remember Long Lake has had a town historian.  The present historian is Jeanne Plumley.  Her husband, Lew, is a descendant of Honest John Plumley.  Honest John was Adirondack Murray’s guide in the 1870’s.  Now Murray was the wacky Boston preacher who managed to convince his parishioners that he needed to spend his summers in Raquette Lake.  He wrote Adventures in the Wilderness, a book that awakened a great many to the wonders of the Adirondacks.  Murray was apt to overstate his case saying that even the smell of the pines and balsam firs in the North Country could cure many ills.  In his book Murray recommends that one would be wise to hire Honest John as a guide.

Sometime before Jeanne, Frances Seaman was the town historian.  As you might remember Howard, her husband, was a famous guideboat racer.  They lived on the lake in the home below which is now owned by our friends Sara and Kenwyn.

I am told that the Seaman’s kitchen was located in the basement.  That worked fine most of the year except for springtime.  Most springs the lake rises ten feet or more which flooded their kitchen.  Rather than abandon the kitchen the Seamans put on boots and went about their normal routine.

According to Mary Beth, Frances kept the town archives on long tables upstairs in their living area.  These are now kept in the town Archive building.  It contains Town Board minutes beginning in 1837, an extensive collection of Adirondack books including Township 34, diaries, writings, and newspaper articles dating back to the early 1800’s and many other important documents and records.

Abbie Verner is responsible for preserving the town’s archives and seeing that they are kept up to date.  I knew that Abbie was a veritable fountain of information about Long Lake history.  So I went to her when I was seeking information about guideboat history.  When I said to her “Abbie, where can I find more about the history of guideboats?” she replied with one word “Stoddard”.

Of course, I thought.  I had seen Seneca Ray Stoddard’s photo below many times while at the Adirondack Museum.

Seneca Ray was a truly gifted man.  Best know for his photographs of the Adirondacks, he was also a cartographer, poet, artist and lecturer.  His sketches of the the devastation of Adirondack waterways caused by logging interests helped persuade the new York State legislature to enact the forever wild amendment to the state constitution in 1895.  This amendment insures that any state land in the Adirondack Park be kept free of any commercial exploitation.

To follow up on Abbie’s cue, the next step was to ask Angie, Adirondack Museum curator, to search the Museum’s collection of Stoddard photos for any that contained a guideboat.  When I viewed those photos  it was as if I was slipping back in time to around  1890.  Stoddard captured the lives of people of all sorts who happened to come to the Adirondacks at that time.  The photo above is one example.  It captures the essence of an Adirondack guide back then.

As I mulled over these photos they began to fall into specific categories.  Each category captures an activity involving guideboats that was common back then.  The categories I discovered are:

• Guideboat evolution
• Hunting by guideboat
• Raiders
• The rise of Adirondack hotels and hotel guides
• The symbiosis of steamers and guideboats

We will explore each of these in future posts.

Next time- guideboat raiders.

In the small Adirondack town of Long Lake there are certain revered folks; you might call them town fathers.  Over the years they have earned their respect.  They have served in our country’s wars, Korea and Vietnam.  Their attachment to the Adirondacks is deep and goes back at least several generations.  They are the receptacles of the town’s history.  This is especially valued by the town’s people since they love to recall their history and go to great lengths to preserve it.

Of course these men have their own quirks and idiosyncrasies.  These traits make them even more beloved to the town people who are fond of retelling the legends about their town fathers.  One of these men is Tom Bissell.

I have known Tom for many years and am privileged to call him friend.  Our relationship with Tom and the town of Long Lake began 30 years ago on a rainy, chilly fourth of July weekend.  We were camped at Forked (pronounced fork-ed) Lake and decided to jump in the car and at least get warm and dry.  We left the boys to fish and headed to the nearest town, Long Lake.  While driving along Fran spotted a sign saying “waterfront lots for sale”. She said, “Let’s go look at them”.  It was against my better judgement but I agreed and we turned onto Endion Road  ( we learned later that Endion means “home” in the Native American language).  We met Tom who showed us 5 lots that he had just finished preparing for sale.  We fell in love with one lot in particular but figured we should look at others to get an idea of what was available.  We found nothing that was even close to what Tom had shown us.  So a couple of days later found us back at Tom’s home.

Tom invited us in and a long discussion ensued with him and his wife Jane.  The discussion ranged over our families and the five generations that Tom’s family had been in Long Lake.  I eventually told Tom that we wanted to purchase a lot from him.  He said “Fine.” I asked if he wanted some sort of payment to hold the lot.  He said “No, you’ll get some papers in the mail in a week or two”.  Sure enough that’s what happened.  So this is how business is transacted in Long Lake, by a handshake.

It turns out that Tom loves Adirondack guideboats.  He once built one where the plank laps were glued together rather than sealed with clinched tacks in the traditional fashion.  The prevailing wisdom was that tacks had to be used otherwise the plank laps would crack.  He was right, when glued the planks didn’t crack.

When he showed his creation to others one of the town folk who was familiar with guideboats exclaimed “That’s no guideboat!”  I can still hear Tom’s staccato chuckle as he recalled the scene.

When I first had the urge to build a guideboat I told Tom of my intention but that I didn’t know how to go about doing it.  He invited me to sit down with him and he would show me how.  I’ll never forget his tutelage.  He had made a scrapbook that had photos of each step in the construction.  It was an enormous help and set me off on the right track.

Tom has also built two models of guideboats.  The craftsmanship displayed in these models is extraordinary and they are executed with exquisite detail.  Here is a photo of Tom holding one of his models.

The model is complete with carrying yoke, “caned” seats and oars.  Tom used extremely small copper tacks to seal the planks.  He got the tacks from guideboat builder Wallace Emerson’s son who built several guideboat models.  Here are additional photos of Tom’s model.

Tom said that it took as long to build one of these models as it did to build a full-sized guideboat!  I can only imagine the patience it took to create this model.

We will visit again with Tom down the road.

Next time: Seneca Ray Stoddard.

A most incredible thing happened this summer in the North Country.  Tupper Lake, a town smack in the middle of the Adirondack Park with a population of 3700 folks, has had 150,000 visitors so far this year!  How could that be? And how did that extraordinary happening cause me to take special interest in models of guideboats.  That interest became so strong, in fact, that I decided I must have a guideboat model.

In answer to the first question The wild Center, or the Adirondack Natural History Museum, is located in Tupper Lake.  After several years of planning and fund raising they opened their Wild Walk on July 4th.  The Wild Walk is a walkway among the tree tops with some incredibly well done natural history themes that fascinate as you stroll through the Walk.  The folks at the Wild Center expected the Wild Walk to increase their daily summer attendance from 500 visitors to 800.  The first month the Walk was open over 2000 visitors per day  were coming to experience the Wild Walk.  That pretty much was the case through August and into the fall.

Let me take you on a photo tour of the Wild Walk.  You start a ground level and gradually ascend to a height of thirty feet.  The first tower, at the entrance, opens the way to feeder alley, a long bird blind flanked by bird feeders.

The feeder alley bird blind.

As we move forward (and upward) we come to the Eagles Nest.  This simulated Eagles nest is only a little bit wider that the largest one ever recorded.  That one weighed over 3 tons.  The view from the nest of the Adirondack High peaks is spectacular.

You can now turn to your right which brings you to the spider web.  This giant trampoline is great fun for kids.  There are clever interactive displays about spiders too so the chance to educate is not lost.

Walk back across and past Eagles Nest and you come to the Twig House.  Inside the Twig House are some hands-on displays on woodpeckers.  There are bird’s nests of all kinds with no identification.  It is up to the visitor to decide who might have made such and such a nest.

The final destination is the Snag, an enlarged version of a white pine snag, or what is left of a virgin white pine after a storm has snapped off its trunk.  Inside you descend via spiral staircase and view dioramas showing how the snag provides shelter and, as it decays, provides nourishment for a whole host of animals and plants.

My wife, Fran, and I visited the Wild Walk construction site a year ago last fall.  We decided right then that we would volunteer to help out when it opened.  This spring we heard that volunteers for “trunk”  programs were needed.  Not knowing just what a trunk program was all about we signed on anyway.

It turned out that trunk programs were portable exhibits contained in a trunk with rollers.  There are four trunk programs; flying squirrels, birds, products of the forest, and fungi.  Everything that is needed for each exhibit is in its trunk.  You just roll the trunk out of the storage shed and set it up at its station on the Wild Walk.

Now Fran and I weren’t able to make trunk training so we decided to bone up on our own on a trunk topic we weren’t particularly knowledgeable about.  I took flying squirrels and she took fungi.

So when our first day on the job arrived we felt pretty confident that we could handle those topics.  Not so fast there newbie volunteers.  The trunks are already set up and they are birds and products of the forest.  I took birds because I knew something about that subject.  But products of the forest, what is that all about?  So off went Fran to find out.

It turns out that the purpose of the products of the forest trunk was to show how Adirondackers used, and still use, the natural resources of the forest.  Three of these were displayed, maple syrup, burls to bowls, and the roots of red spruce for guideboat stems and ribs.  So Fran was right at home with this trunk having lived with one who built guideboats for the past 20 years.  Here she is at the forest products trunk.

Now we come to the guideboat model thing and how the Wild Walk led me to a search for a guideboat model.  The Wild Center interns did an excellent job in preparing the trunk exhibits.  I did take exception to the guideboat model in forest products trunk.  It is basically a canoe with oars.  This model has thwarts (guideboats don’t have thwarts), it has a round bottom (guideboats have a flat bottom) and no decks.

When I talked to the interns they totally agreed that the model wasn’t representative of a guideboat but it was all they could find.  Remember, they said, the model can’t be too expensive, must fit in the trunk, and must be durable.  Alright, I said, look and see if I can find a guideboat model that meets those specs.  That is when I got hooked on guideboat models.

I searched the internet first but could only find modes that were quite expensive, over $1000.  The Adirondack Museum had two models that looked promising.  By now I was looking at the models more for my own then the Wild Walk.  When the Museum had a 30% off one day sale for members I bought a model for less than $200.  Here it is.

The more I examined this model the more I was amazed at how closely it resembles a real guideboat.  There are eight planks per side and the decks are nicely done.  Here is a close-up photo of the inside of the hull.

Something about the model made me think it was very close to being a miniature of a Hanmer guideboat.  Here is a full-sized Hanmer guideboat at the Adirondack Museum.  Note that the deck and the middle seat back are similar to those on my model.

Another clue was the slant of the stem.  The stems on guideboats made in the southwest part of the Park; Old Forge, Boonville) slant outward, those made in the center of the Park (Long Lake, Newcomb) are straight up and down, and those to the north are tumble home, or slope inward towards the midships.

Here is the stem on the Hanmer boat.

I have no idea where this model was made but it is a very accurate copy of a guideboat.  I am struck by that accuracy ever time I look at it.  Bravo to whoever made it.

Next time we meet the builder of a very exact model of a guideboat.

If you are in the Adirondacks for any length of time you will soon find yourself elbow-to-elbow with wild creatures.  After all, with six million acres of pretty much wilderness, man has a hard time asserting his dominance over the natural world.  This post will tell how wildlife took over a small part of our Adirondack world and how a guideboat was used to set matters straight, at least for now.

The Adirondacks weren’t always an untouched wilderness.  Lumbering interests ravaged parts of the Adirondacks beginning about 1860.  They clear cut vast areas of the Park leaving behind the slash which contributed to forest fires.  The denuded mountains were then prone to mudslides which clogged the flow of streams and rivers.  The lumbermen dammed rivers and streams so that they could float logs to market.  The drowned lands caused by this practice were very forlorn in appearance as seen in Seneca Ray Stoddard’s sketches.  Stoddard was a renowned photographer and artist of the Adirondacks during the 1890’s.

Verplank Colvin, the famous surveyor of the Park, was appalled by what he saw as he traveled about mapping vast areas of the Adirondack wilderness.  He alerted the New York State legislature of the wanton destruction he saw.  His witness, as well as that of Stoddard’s, resulted in the legislature creating the Adirondack Park in 1892.

The damage to wildlife from loss of habitat as the vast forest was cut down was staggering.  The last wolf in the Adirondacks was shot in the 1890’s.  Elk and moose disappeared.  Beaver were nearly wiped out.

In 1895, the new York State legislature passed the “forever wild” act that forbids any commercial activity of any kind on state owned land in the Park.  Since the state now owns about 50% of the land in the Adirondack Park, this has had a huge influence on the natural state of this region.

Within the last 20 years I have witnessed a great turnabout in the diversity of wildlife within the Adirondack Park.  I can remember a debate in the 1990’s about whether to reintroduce moose back into the Park.  There were some very opposed to the idea saying that automobiles and moose don’t mix well.  Well, you can’t really legislate the wild world out there.  The moose, unaware of the controversy, decided that the recovered Adirondacks were a pretty nice place to raise a family.  Below is photo of a bull moose taken this fall by my friend Joan Collins of Long Lake.  Joan operates Adirondack Avian Expeditions for those who love to see the great variety of songbirds and other wildlife who make the Adirondacks their summer home.

As far as wolves in the Adirondack Park, strictly speaking there are no gray wolves in the Park.  A debate goes on as to whether to introduce gray wolves into some of the very remote areas of the Park.  In the meantime, a kind of hybrid wolf has made himself right at home here.  Called a Coy-wolf, this creature looks every bit a wolf and apparently hunts in packs as wolves do.  These canines are the result of interbreeding between the western coyote and the Canadian red wolf.  They are extremely adaptable having infiltrated some major Eastern cities by following railroad tracks into a city and disembarking at urban parks and golf courses.  They are so stealthy that they can hide in brush or other cover and can’t be seen even from a few feet away.

A pleasant outcome of the introduction of coy-wolves is the rise in the raven population.  Ravens feed on the kills of the coy-wolves.  Twenty years ago ravens weren’t to be seen, at least where our camp is.  This summer I counted six of them at one time in the neighborhood.  Their shrill “screams” and metallic “clonks” can be heard at least a half mile away and are a delight to the ear.

I began by talking about the close proximity of man to nature in the Adirondacks.  A small example was the trashing of our clothesline this summer.  One morning we looked out our bedroom window to find what was left of the clothesline laying on the ground.  Someone or something had cut every strand of the line at the clothes pole.  We ruled out our neighbors since they weren’t home at the time.  Besides, we are good friends.  We finally agreed that red squirrels were the culprit.  Three of them had been chasing about the day before and one of them apparently took great delight in gnawing through our clothesline.

Beavers have made a very strong comeback in the Adirondacks, so strong in fact that they have often become a nuisance.  We have had a family of beavers coexisting with us for a number of years.  The locals call them “bank” beavers since they build their lodge in a bank along a lake or river.  Here are our bank beavers, mom and baby, out getting a snack at dusk before returning to their lodge, which is in a bank on our property.

Now beavers are pretty smart animals.  For example, rather than go all the way around our peninsula to get to their food source they will build a canal across it.  They also anticipate their winter needs and make provision for food for when the weather turns harsh.  That’s where our trouble with them started.  On returning to our camp this spring we spotted a large mass of twigs and brush floating in the middle of our channel.  The channel leads to the main lake so anything that blocks it means we can’t get our boats out into the main lake.

Those in the know in Long Lake said “Oh that’s a feed bed.  That’s were they’ve decided to put it this year.  Last year they stuffed it under someone’s  dock.”

At first we could easily get around the feed bed since the lake was so high with all the spring rains.  But as an especially dry summer wore on it became increasingly difficult to navigate around the feed bed.  Something had to be done.

A plan was hatched.  I would take the anchor from our power boat out in the guideboat and drop it on the other side of the feed bed.  My friend Chris would pull on the anchor, whose flutes we hoped would grab onto the feed bed, and thereby drag the feed bed to shore.

This scheme was only partially successful.  We did get the feed bed to move a little towards the shore before the anchor came loose from the bed.  We decided that Chris would now throw the anchor over the bed.  That would eliminate my having to come into shore every time to retrieve the anchor.  My role would now be to help make sure the anchor held onto the bed as long as possible

We did this for several tries until the anchor came loose from its line during a throw over the bed and disappeared into the muck.  Goodbye anchor, or so we thought.  Plan B was to use a short length of galvanized pipe with a line through both ends to form a sort of yoke.  I abandoned the guideboat and waded in to put the new plan in effect.

After a total of two hours of hard labor enough of the feed bed was moved aside to allow our power boat to get out to the main lake.

Now the anchor.  When my son Rob came to help us close up the camp in September, he asked us what jobs needed doing.  One, low on the priority list mostly because I thought it was futile, was to retrieve the anchor.  Rob took that as a challenge and off he went in the guideboat.

In no time he had found what he thought was the anchor.  He marked it by driving the paddle in the muck next to it.  He then waded out and pulled the anchor out.

So the result was a win-win situation.  The beavers still have their feed bed and we can use the channel again.