Dr. Gordon Fisher

I said that I would tell you how William West Durant affected the characteristics of the Adirondack guideboat.  Then I realized that another larger-than-life character also had an impact on guideboat design.  His name was William Henry Harrison Murray.  Neither Durant or Murray had a direct influence on what became the quintessental Adirondack guideboat, but they surely had an influence.

Durant drew the absurdly rich to the Adirondacks by building his Great Camps.  Murray was a preacher in Boston who was drawn to camp in the Adirondacks every summer.  He became convinced that everyone, regardless of their social or economic status, should experience the wonders of the wilderness.  He felt that through such a journey one was brought closer to his Maker.

In 1869 Murray published  Adventures in the Wilderness, a book rich with tales of his experiences while being guided down Long Lake and into Raquette Lake.  His writing is clear and direct.  It neither talks over the reader’s head or talks down to him.  Humor, suspense, and mystery are sprinkled throughout the book.

But the book carries through on his wish that the common man have the spiritual  experience of being immersed in the natural world.  The first part of his book reads like a Fodors of the Adirondack wilderness.  It tells how to get there, what clothes to wear, who are the best guides, the best hunting and fishing gear, and so on.  The railroads, anticipating a rush to the Adirondacks, began giving the book away.

The public’s response to the book was overwhelming.  Tourists, sportsmen, and all manner of humanity flocked to the Adirondack wilderness during the summer of 1869.  You can imagine the chaos when several thousand people descended on a wilderness where there was little of everything; food, lodging, and guides.

To make matters worse the summer of 1869 was miserable, rainy and chilly.  Those who heeded Murray’s call to follow him became known as “Murray’s Fools”.

So how did these two very imposing figures, W. W. Durant and William H. H. Murray have an effect on the Adirondack guideboat?  Before they came on the scene guideboats were a work boat, created by each guide over the winter months.  A guide might sometimes make more than one boat to sell to another guide but the demand for these boats was not great enough to make a living building them.  Guides built their boats to meet their own needs.  First of all they had to be lightweight and rugged.  They kept things simple.  Their boats were painted and they used planks for seats.

The  owners of vast wealth brought to the Adirondacks by Durant and the stable tourist trade encouraged by Murray changed that.  The Great Camps owners became enamored by the sleek design of these boats and decided just one or two wouldn’t do.  The Pryuns of Camp Santanoni  had a boat house on Lake Newcomb, home of their Great Camp, a boat house on near-by Moose Pond, and one at their gatehouse in Newcomb.   They had at least eight guideboats scattered about these locations, all built by Caleb Chase.  Hotels hired guides by the day to row their clientele about their lakes.  My friend Tom Bissell remembers that builder Wallace Emerson would tow a fleet of guideboats each spring up Long Lake to the long gone Sagamore Hotel there.  Private clubs, like the Adirondack League Club, took many of the boats.

The increased demand for guideboats meant that shops devoted to building these handsome, but not easily built, craft began to spring up and prosper.  Towards the end of the 1800’s there were 72 guideboat builders in the Adirondacks.

With the increase in number of builders came competition.  Though easier to plank, lapstrake construction was replaced on these boats by smooth skinned planking. Simple plank seats gave way to caned ones.  The middle seat got a hinged back rest that would fold down when not in use.  Now can you see any self respecting guide using a back rest?  The ultimate in catering to the changes that tourism brought was a grate-like affair that conformed to the inside of the hull.  It was meant to protect the thin skinned hull from ladies in high heeled boots.  Decks were not immune to being gussied up.  Fancy woods were used and each builder had his own idea for a unique design.  And that bare hole in the bow deck used to hold the lantern for jacking deer; now adorned with a fancy brass feed thru.

Varnish replaced paint as the preferred finish.  Varnish showed off the light honey color of the pine planking.  It also showed the vast array of copper tacks used to seal the hull and the lines of brass screws  used to secure planks to ribs.  Applying varnish to get a mirror-like, run-free finish is tricky business and far more time consuming than brushing on a few coats of paint.

Shops like the Grants, Chase, Parson Brothers, Warren Cole, and others hired perhaps six or more skilled carpenters and soon gained a reputation for excellence.  The Grants, father Dwight and son Lewis, built 358 boats, all from their shop in Boonville, NY.  The Parson Brothers, Ben and Ira, inherited their boat building business from their father.  Here they are in their later years.

Here is one of their boats, a Raider, at 14 feet 3 inches.

I found fascinating a view of their shop taken around the turn of the century.

There are actually six men in this photo.  You probably missed the fellow outside the rear doorway.  He is carrying a guideboat on his shoulders in true Adirondack guide fashion using a yoke.

So would the Adirondack guideboat have evolved into such an extraordinarily beautiful craft without the upheaval wrought by Durant and Murray?  Who knows?  I think not,

In the last post we learned that William West Durant created a new style of architecture called Adirondack Great Camp in Raquette Lake NY in the 1870’s.  We heard all about Great Camp Pine Knot, Durant’s first venture into this new, bold expression of rustic living.  In that post. architecture was the prime focus.  In this one we will search for what kind of man Durant was.  Like all of us he was both saint and sinner.  Here is a profile of Durant as a dashing young man.

This pose would suggest that he was quite a ladies man.  Indeed he was.  He was especially attracted to young ladies.  He married Janet Strop, age 19, in 1884.  The Strops were long time friends of the Durant family.

Now I’ll take a tangent and show you an old photo that piqued my interest.  It is of guides and guideboats at the Camp Pine Knot landing.

What attracted my attention was the object floating offshore.  It must be the houseboat Durant called Barque.  Here is a close up of Barque pulled up on the shore at Pine Knot.

What was the purpose of Barque?  In the Adirondacks starting in about mid-May and lasting well into June and perhaps beyond, a scourge of tiny insects called black flies appears.  They look more like a gnat than a fly.  They are relentless in their pursuit of bare human flesh.  Their bite is painless but soon a welt the size of a dime rises at the bite site.  This welt may last for up to a week and it itches like mad.  Insect repellents have no effect on black flies.

One can escape them by getting out on the water, especially if even a slight breeze is present.  Hence Barque.  Durant supposedly built Barque so that ladies visiting Pine Knot in the spring and early summer would be comfortable.  He may have had an ulterior motive.

Here is Durant’s cabin at Pine Knot, a modest affair.

My admiration for Durant went up when I learned he spent the winter of 1875 in a tent on the Pine Knot site.  Having spent a full year in the Adirondacks I can appreciate the struggle he faced to keep warm and sane.  The landscape turns white, with some splotches of dark green, and the sky is uniformly pewter.  It snows every day, often just an inch or so, but it all adds up.  We had seventeen feet of snow fall the year we stayed through the winter.

There was another structure on the Pine Knot grounds that had a very low profile.  In fact, when the Camp was sold to Colis P. Huntington, it was not even marked on the survey of the property.  This building was unusual in that every room in it had a door that opened to the outside.  So visitors to Camp Kirby could come and go undetected.  It was called Camp Kirby after its owner, a Mrs. Kirby.  A young lady, Cornelia, spent her summers with her cousin at Camp Kirby.  Cornelia was seventeen.

The docent on our tour of Camp Pine Knot said that Durant kept a bicycle handy for a quick transit to Camp Kirby.  So while the ladies were safely holed up on Barque avoiding the black fly menace, Durant was braving them to make his way to other pursuits.  His interest on other women apparently became widely enough known that his wife was granted a divorce in 1895.

Durant was a brilliant architect but a terrible business man.  He simply could not control the cost of building his Great Camps.  In order to avoid bankruptcy he would sell each of his camps as soon as they were completed.  As mentioned, Camp Pine Knot was bought by Colis P. Huntington, while Camp Uncas went to J. P. Morgan and Camp Sagamore to Alfred Vanderbilt.

When Durant’s father died without a will in 1885, William was drawn to this new source of money like a moth to flame.  He somehow wrested control of the estate and proceeded to cheat his sister out of her share of it.  When he granted her a mere $2oo a month while buying a 190 foot ocean going yacht, sister Ella took legal action.   After years of litigation she was awarded $750,000.  You have probably guessed the outcome, there was no money left in the estate satisfy her judgment.

There is a brighter side of William West Durant.  He built two churches on Raquette Lake.  Both are still there and in fine condition.  Here is St. Williams Roman Catholic Church.  The other is an Episcopal Church, the Church of the Good Shepard,

Next time I’ll give my take on how Durant affected the iconic Adirondack guideboat.

 

Why would you christen your dinner cruise vessel the W W Durant?  This steamboat-like vessel was built with your hands and the help of three others.  It is spacious enough to hold 70 people and feed them gourmet meals.  You constructed it in 1992 on the shores of Raquette Lake, the same shores where wooden steamboats where built and launched by journeymen ship carpenters in the late 1800’s.

Your name is Dean Pohl, and together with your wife Donna, and chef son Jim, you operate a dinner cruise vessel on Raquette Lake.  You were born and raised in Raquette Lake and you know its history by heart.  On your cruises you relate that history to the delight of your guests.  One of my favorites is the story of how Raquette got its name.  It goes something like this:

Near the end of our War of Independence, Sir John Johnson, a Tory, was being hotly pursued by the Revolutionary Forces.  In March of 1776, he and is party of Seneca and Mohawk braves were fleeing north on snowshoes trying to escape to Canada.  A sudden Spring thaw overtook them and they were forced to abandon their snowshoes, called raquettes by the French.  They happened to be at the South Inlet of Raquette Lake when shedding their raquettes.  This large pile of abandoned snowshoes remained for years and led to the name given to the lake.

The Durants, William and his father Thomas caused seismic changes in the life of the Adirondacks when they arrived on the scene in 1870’s.  It is safe to say the changes they caused still reverberate in the North Country today.

Thomas Durant was the VP of the Union Pacific Railroad when the eastern portion of the transcontinental railroad was completed.  As a consequence he was given 500,000 acres of Adirondack land to develop.  He promptly put his son William in charge of the task of developing this vast region.  The first thing they did was to extend the rails from Saratoga to North Creek.  Still, it was day’s journey by stagecoach to Raquette Lake.

William then conceived of a  style of architecture that was unique to the Adirondacks.  It came to be called Adirondack Great Camp.  William hoped that these Camps would entice the exceeding wealthy of the day to own them.  This summer Fran and I toured Great Camp Pine Knot, Durant’s first Great Camp.  We learned much about Great Camps and the man who built them.

Here is the main lodge of Great Camp Pine Knot on Raquette Lake’s North Point.  All Durant’s Great Camps have a main lodge.  It was in the main lodge that the Robber Barons of of the day were wined and dined and persuaded to invest in an Adirondack venture; a Great Camp.

As far as I know, all the main lodges of Durant’s Great Camps were two stories high and totally constructed of wood. This one was called Chalet.  As a youth William was educated in Europe.  His style of Adirondack architecture was no doubt influenced by his exposure to Old World building styles and conventions.

Below is the recreation building.  Inside, a guest could relax by playing card games or billiards in the game room.

Here is  a view of the game room inside this building.  The guest is surrounded by objects and other reminders that he is now far away from his familiar surroundings.

You have perhaps noticed the intricate twig work on these buildings, especially the recreation building.  It would become a hallmark of Durant’s style and later, of Adirondack design.  Here are some further examples.

By now you have realized that all construction in Durant’s Great Camps is of wood and kept as rustic as possible.  Buildings were set back away from the water for privacy and were constructed to serve a specific purpose, say recreation hall, sleeping cottages, dining hall, etc. They served to make the guest feel immersed in the wilderness yet not separated from the creature comforts they were so accustomed to.  To provide these comforts, servants lived in buildings away from the main complex. The entire Camp covered a wide area as you can see from the view below.

Building interiors reinforced the presence of the wilderness.  Here are views of the interior of one of the sleeping cottages.

The dining hall was intriguing.  Here it is, a glass house.

What a wonderful view of the lake the guests had as they took their meals.  We wondered how hot meals made it from the kitchen to the table without getting cold.  Here is a view of the inside of the dining hall.

Next time, in Part 2, we will talk about Durant as a person.  It turns out he was quite a scoundrel!  I will also draw guideboats into the story.

 

 

As explained in an earlier post, the Blue Mountain Lake Flotilla was being held to reenact a parade of lighted small craft held in 1882.  That Flotilla celebrated the opening of the Prospect House, the first hotel in the world to have electric lights in every room.  As the New York Telegram proclaimed in August, 1882 “It was one of the prettiest and most novel sites ever witnessed in the wilderness”.

So this was the arrangement for towing the small craft electing to join the Flotilla. The vintage motor launch, Toowaloondah, would drag a tow rope.   Affixed to the tow rope were shorter rope “branches” coming off at intervals.  At the end of these branches were carabiners.  Each boat participating in the Flotilla would connect their painter to the carabiner and off we go.

Here is a photo of the Toowahloondah and some of the parade boats.

I was suspect of this arrangement.  Some “what ifs” came to mind.  What if we were dragged into the main line and got dumped over?  Was there enough space between each boat so we wouldn’t crash into one another?  As a friend put it “guideboats are to be rowed, not towed”.  So we decided not to be towed but to follow the Flotilla under our own power.

Now a second problem arose.  The schedule for the day’s events kept slipping.  The Flotilla was slated to start at 6 pm.  It was long after that and no movement was made to get underway.  As shown by these photos of the bonfire taken at later and later intervals, it got darker, and darker, and darker.

So finally the order was given to launch to Flotilla’s collection of small craft and get in line behind the Toowahloondah.  It was now about 9 pm.  The beach suddenly became a scene of chaos.  In the dark, boats headed every which way.  I was manning the oars in the bow and Fran had a guide’s paddle in the stern.  The decision to arm her with the paddle would save the day for us many times over as you will see.

We shoved off the beach and headed into the fray.  As rower I couldn’t see where we were headed.  Fran barked orders from her vantage point as helmsman.  I got impatient to get free of the “bumper car” melee but she restrained me.  “Stop” or “Slow to the starboard” she would say.  We finally did get free and, miraculously, did not hit anyone.  We headed, slowly east down the lake.

We were suddenly aware of how really dark it had become.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a half moon slide down behind the southern hills. It was now pitch black!  We Fishers call this “Adirondack Dark”.  No diffused light pierces its inkiness.  We tried hugging the shore line but there were no lights onshore to help us.  To make matters worse, our flashlights were out of reach in the middle of the boat.  Adding to our unease, Blue Mountain Lake was totally unfamiliar to us.

At this point we abandoned the thought of being in the Flotilla and decided a safe passage was more important.  As we crept along, ghostly shapes of buoys, moored boats, and piers arose and drifted by.

I insisted on searching out the boat livery ramp where we had launched Frances C. earlier in the day.  We simply could not find it.  Still I insisted on looking for the ramp.  I was like a male driver refusing to ask directions.  Finally I gave up and, since I could not see where we were headed, turned over all navigation to Fran and her guide’s paddle.

She said “I see a light and maybe a couple of people ahead.”  We decided that was the only option available and headed for the light.  As we drew closer Fran began to shout “HELLO, HELLO!”  No answer.  HELLO, HELLO!  Still no answer.

Finally we scraped up on a sandy beach and a man and woman rushed down to help us out of the boat.  They must have be astounded when two people dressed in 1880’s attire washed up on the town beach.  Back to the future?

Fran asked “Didn’t you hear us yelling Hello?  “Oh” they said, “We thought you were saying “Row, Row!”  So that’s why sailors shout “Ahoy” when they want to get your attention.

So we took in the fireworks display marking the end of flotilla Day before putting Frances on her trailer and heading home.

One final note.  Here is heroine Fran the next day with her guide’s paddle.

In the last post I talked about the Prospect House, an amazing hotel constructed in the middle of the Adirondack Wilderness in 1882.  The owners of Prospect Point Cottages, David and Paul, decided to reenact a celebration held in the summer of 1882 in honor of the Prospect House.  The original celebration was a flotilla of over 70 small craft drawn by a steam boat that circled the Lake.  Each boat was lighted by Chinese lanterns or other means to give a stunning visual effect.

David and Paul planned a number of gala activities for Flotilla Day.  The event was truly a “happening” as you will see.  The day started by getting our Old Lady guideboat, the Frances C., on her trailer and hauling her to the Blue Mountain Lake boat livery.  Fran and I were both in 1880’s garb, Fran in Victorian  dress and me dressed as an Adirondack guide.  After dropping Fran at Prospect Point, I rowed Frances C. over to the Prospect Point beach.  Here she is.

The first of the day’s activities was was to partake in a bounteous feast of H’0rdeurves and various beverages including Champagne.  This was held at the nearby resort, the Hedges.  The Hedges goes back to the same era as the Prospect House, the 1880’s. Here are photos of some of the guests enjoying the food and drink at the Hedges.

Fran has a sip of Champagne at the Hedges.

I noticed that Santa had arrived early and had taken possession of a guideboat.

Now back to Prospect Point.  There was costume judging going on and guess what? Fran and I won first prize.  Here we are:

Later on in the afternoon we were treated to a delicious chicken barbecue.  After dining, David introduced his parents.  He explained that his parents had been coming to Prospect Point since right after WWII.  The boys began coming when they were very young. When the cottages came up for sale in 1952 the older Oestreichers decided to purchase the cottages.  This, despite the advice of relatives who said “We’re from the Bronx, we don’t fix stuff”.  Below is a photo of Mom and Dad Oestreicher, David and Paul’s parents.  They got a large hand from the crowd.

Before going further I must show you a photo of Blue Mountain.  She really was blue that day.

Well, by golly, Santa decided to join the Flotilla.

Now the day has flown by and darkness is not far off.  The cannons have been firing from time to time but we still need the orchestra to serenade us and Hallie to give her talk on the history of boats and boating at the Prospect House.  A  cool breeze has sprung up off the Lake which causes some shivering on Fran’s part in her light costume.  We are not sure how the orchestra and concert pianist will fare under these conditions but they do a marvelous job.

After the concert we adjourn to a tent where Hallie gives her delightful rendition of the history of Prospect House.  You have gotten pieces of her story if you read my previous post.  Here is Hallie, in partial darkness, giving her talk.  She won the prize for the most authentic costume.

Now it is getting quite dark and chilly.  Thank goodness the organizers had planned a bonfire.  It took some of the edge off the chill.

The Flotilla was supposed to start at 6 pm.  It is well past that and getting really dark.  This will add to Fran and my travails as we attempt to join the Flotilla.  More on that next time.

 

 

This summer I picked up one of these flyers at a local business in Long Lake.  I was intrigued by it.  It sounded too good to be true; food, music, lights, fireworks, bonfires, and a boat parade, all for $25 if you brought your own boat.  I thought the best person to get the scoop on this event was my friend Hallie Bond.  If it involves boats in the Adirondacks then Hallie will know about it.  After all, she is the former curator of watercraft at the Adirondack Museum and has authored the classic volume, Boats and Boating in the Adirondacks.  Sure enough, Hallie was on the committee that planned the activities surrounding the flotilla.  The idea for the flotilla originated with David O. who, with his brother Paul, operate Prospect Point Cottages.

Prospect Point Cottages now occupy the site of the former Prospect House hotel, which opened in 1882.  Here is a description of the Prospect House taken from the Prospect Point Cottages website.

“It is difficult now, gazing at the quiet cabins, trees and fields, to imagine that Prospect Point has a unique place in Americas past.  But it was this point with its magnificent setting that Frederic Durant, nephew of railroad tycoon, Thomas C. Durant, chose as the place to to realize a grandiose vision.  In 1881, on the grounds of of Prospect Point, Durant erected what swiftly became the most fashionable mountain hotel in the Northern United States.  With the help of Thomas Edison, who saw to the electricity, Durant’s fabulous Prospect House was the first hotel in the world with an electric light in every room.  It soared 6 stories high, boasted 300 rooms, accommodated 500 to nearly 600 guests, and offered a bowling alley, barbershop, shooting gallery, billiard room, hydraulic steam elevator, electric bells, restaurant, library, physician and pharmacy, telegraph office, steam heat and resident orchestra, which twice each day charmed America’s wealthiest  and most influential citizens.  Among them were the Astors, Tiffanys, Whitneys, Vanderbilts and many others.

Here are some photos and drawings of the Prospect House provided by Hallie Bond and the Adirondack Museum.

One of the special activities of the Flotilla celebration was a talk given by Hallie on boats and boating at the Prospect House.  She shared the photos and commentary in that talk with me.  The boats at Prospect House were not guideboats, as one might expect, but a craft similar to one called whitehalls. The whitehalls I know were used as water taxis in the New York and Boston harbors.  They were rowed, or sailed, and could be used by ship chandlers to intercept clipper ships as they approached these harbors.  The first boat to board an inbound ship would more than likely get the business.

Here is a whitehall, Elysea, built by by my Uncle Don with the help of master ship builders on the Eastern shore of Maryland.  They used the old tools and methods to build her.  Uncle Don donated Elysea to the Mystic Seaport Museum.  Note the wineglass stern and lapstrake planking that are the hallmarks of whitehall construction.

None of the over 80 boats used at Prospect House remain.  Hallie found a reference to them that said they were “broad boats of the Champlain type”.  They were transom-sterned craft of the whitehall shape.  They were built by a fellow named Fletcher Joyner, a former Adirondack guide.

However we do have some images of them.  Here is a rather romantic scene.

The boats were launched from finger docks as shown below.

The guests were allowed to go out in the boats on their own without a guide.  This resulted in more than one amusing situation, I am sure.  Here is one such instance.

Hallie was curious as to what you do with 80 some boats in the wintertime.  She found a photo showing that they were stashed on the balconies of the Prospect House.

Next time we well follow the day’s activities of the Flotilla celebration.  In the final post on the Flotilla I describe our rather harrowing experience as we partake in the Flotilla.

 

 

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In the last post Thankful passed to new hands.  I knew she was in good hands when Jon, her new owner, decided to “re-launch” her in her symbolic place of birth.  Her “mom”, the Queen Anne, was built by Caleb Chase of Newcomb, NY for the Pryun family who owned Great Camp Santanoni.  I reproduced the Queen Anne when building Thankful.

Caleb Chase had his home, shop, and farm on Rich Lake in Newcomb.  My son Stew and I originally launched Thankful on Rich Lake as a salute to the old master boat builder Caleb.  It seems right to honor this old gentleman by bringing back his “progeny” to their place of origin for a ritual bath in Rich Lake.

Rich Lake is a beautiful Adirondack Lake.  Its gently sloping white sand beach is secluded with no evidence of human presence.

Here is a narration of the launch day’s events provided by Jon:

“On Monday we met John, along with his boat and a stretch of glorious weather, for a beautiful outing on Rich Lake.  After a quick rendezvous at the Adirondack Information Center, we proceeded to the launch on Rich Lake.  My wife and daughters were along as well.

We carried Thankful from the upper parking lot and doubled back for John’s boat.  We launched with my wife and children in Thankful, and John solo in his boat.  We headed up to the marshes of Fishing Creek, quickly noting how smoothly she pulled through the water.  The lake was mirror-calm, and Thankful had no problem holding a line.  We were entertained by a charismatic loon who put on a small show for us, at much closer range than we are accustomed to from these beautiful birds.  Perhaps he recognized the boat?  We returned along the opposite shore to the gorgeous beaches for the children to swim.

At this point, I jumped into the middle seat, and along with John and his boat, we headed around the point and did a short row up one of the other bays.  We returned to the beach to switch boats, and give John a chance at Thankful’s oars.  We both agreed that the boat moves flawlessly and was a joy to see on the water.  I was also thrilled to have a chance to row John’s beautiful boat as well.

We took her [Thankful] out several more times during the week from our camp on [the Fulton Chain] and had plans to take her up to South Inlet on Raquette Lake to Sagamore, but ran out of time.

She really is a beautiful craft, and we look forward to years of enjoyment from her.”

If you have been following my blog posts you know that I was offering to sell one of my guideboats.  This was the latest of those that I have built and it is named Thankful after the wife of  builder Caleb Chase.  Caleb created the Queen Anne, the guideboat owned by my friend Susan and the boat that I have reproduced three times (a fourth is on the way).

It is hard to part with anything you have spent hundreds of hours creating.  As with many traditionally built guideboats, the Thankful was called a work of art by many who saw it.  Indeed I was quite proud of her and sometimes wondered how I was able pull it all together into such a beautiful object.  Although I loved Thankful it was time to turn her over to others to enjoy.  My hope was that someone would take possession of her who had the same passion for these boats that I do.

I need not have worried.  Jon is the perfect new owner of Thankful.  He grew up knowing the Adirondacks and guideboats and is determined that his children will have the same experiences.  He was quite sensitive to my having to part with something that I had invested so much of myself into.  Best of all Thankful will not be relegated to a stale “display” in someone’s Adirondack Camp never to see the water again. Jon will see that she is on the water often.

So the day arrived when Jon came to take Thankful to her new home.  Here she is about to be put on top of Jon’s car.

Here is Jon tying down Thankful.

By now Jon and I are good friends.

And off goes Thankful and her new owner.  She will stay in the Adirondacks in a camp among the Fulton Chain of lakes.

Next time; Thankful is re-launched.

 

On this weekend every year the Adirondack 90 mile canoe race is run.  The race starts in Old Forge, NY and ends in Saranac Lake, NY.  Since the second leg begins literally in my backyard, I will check it out.  Two of my friends, John and Jon, are in the race so I will see how they are doing.

Our neighbor, Tom Bissell, graciously allows his field to be used as a staging area.  There are probably 500 contestants who hale from all over the US and some foreign countries.  The racers start arriving shortly after the finish of the first leg yesterday and soon Tom’s field becomes an impressive parking lot.

I head out early looking for the guideboat racers.  There aren’t many but they are a hardy crew.  Here are some of them.

Here is another guideboat racer.  He looks fresh and ready to go.

 

I come upon Stephanie and her Dad, Steve.   They are the only ones racing in a traditionally built guideboat. Stephanie tells me the boat is over 100 years old and she will be retired after this race.  I was impressed with what fine shape their boat was in.  They believe the boat was built by John Blanchard of Raquette Lake and wonder who might help them identify the builder.  I suggest Hallie Bond , the former Curator at the Adirondack Museum.  Here are Stephanie and Steve beside their boat.

I find John with a friend of his.  They are talking about the rigors of the first day’s race.

This year water levels are quite high due to the abundant rainfall we’ve had all summer.  This meant traversing Brown’s Tract was made that much more difficult.  The greater flow in this serpentine stream was a bigger obstacle for the racers and the turns seemed sharper.  Brown’s Tract is only a mile long as the crown flies but is three miles long as a boat goes.

Guideboats find Brown’s Tract quite daunting because the creek is only five feet wide in some spots.  The “wingspan” of  guideboat, counting its beam and oars, is about 16 feet.  Guideboaters talk about “crabwalking” their boat through portions of the Brown’s Tract.  By crabwalking they mean using their oars to push off the bank to keep moving.

Another wrinkle was that  beavers had erected a dam across the Tract.  It sometimes takes more that one try to get over the dam and back in the race.

A further obstacle was the Marion River.  Once out of Brown’s Tract the racers head east across the South Bay of Raquette Lake into the Marion River.  The river is high and flowing against them.  Some complained that they could barely move against the current

At some point one of John’s oars got jammed against a bank.  The forward momentum of the boat caused it to careen around and cracked the gunwale.  This slowed down their progress.  John is racing with his son Dalton.

Emergency repairs were made.  Here Jon, the new owner of the guideboat Thankful, views the damage with John. Jon is racing in a four man canoe and, at this point in the race, is in third place by four minutes.

Here is a closeup of the emergency repair made to John’s boat.

I asked John how long each leg of the three leg race took him.  He said probably more than seven hours.  That is a whole lot of rowing, or paddling, if you are in the stern seat.  John wears gloves but also tapes his hands to protect against blisters.  Blisters apparently don’t bother him.  If they pop he washes them in the clean lake water and is off again.

The guideboat “wave” was called and off went John and Dalton on the second leg of the 90 miler.

I was impressed with camaradarie of the racers and their upbeat spirit.

Mention lightweight to any member of my family from grandchild on up and they know exactly what you are talking about.  Lightweights are light weight pack canoes that came about out of a desperation to find a better way to go on canoe camping trips.  Here is a lightweight.

More on these charming craft after I tell you what drove me to build one (actually I have built about a dozen lightweights).  My son Stew and I decided to take a canoe trip starting in the Saint Regis  Canoe Area in the Adirondack Park.  It was to be a three day trip that would take us through the Canoe Area and into the Saranac Lakes and ending in the Lower Saranac Lake.

The only canoe we had at the time was our 90 pound Coleman “Tupperware” canoe as I call it.  We soon found that the carries we were to encounter along our chosen route would test along our fortitude.  We would need to traverse the Nine Carries Route and the Seven Carries Route.  You get the idea.  The carries were not the only problem.  Soon after getting underway we encountered a huge white pine blow down across one carry.  It required lifting our canoe almost head high in order to shove it over the obstacle.

The payoff occurred when coming out of the St. Regis Canoe Area.  We needed to find our way through the network of ponds that led into Upper Saranac Lake.  On the carries we portaged the canoe upside down so our visibility was quite limited.  This caused us to miss a critical turn on one carry.  We began walking down a very nicely paved path with mowed grass on each side.  I said to Stew “This doesn’t look right.  Let’s drop the canoe and take a look around”.  We dropped the canoe with a clatter and a bang (there were metal pails for washing dishes hanging from the boat.  We were quite a sight!).

It turned out that we were right next to the first tee of the Saranac Golf Course and there were several gentlemen ready to tee off.  This was bad enough but our “detour” took us out of the way by about a half mile.

As soon as I got home I began to search for a better option for canoe pack trips.  I came across Geodesic Airolite boats by an inventor, Platt Monfort.  These boats essentially consist of a light wooden frame covered with aircraft heat shrinkable Dacron.  Platt promoted his boats as easy to build and they certainly are.  The boat shown above is 24 years old and weighs about 18 lbs.  My family loves to paddle about in them and I have sold four of them.  They are sturdy and can carry about 200 lbs.

One of our lightweights was inadvertently left outside over the winter.  Algae had grown on the covering which was need of replacement anyway.  Here it is before removing the old covering.

After removing the rub strips and stem band the old cover is taken off.  Next, a fabric adhesive called Heat N’ Bond is applied to the inwales.  It is applied with an iron.

The aircraft grade Dacron (3 oz per yard) is spread over the frame and attached to the inwales.  This is done by applying a hot iron along the inwale to activate the Heat N’ Bond adhesive.

The Dacron is heat shrunk starting at the center of the boat and moving toward each stem.  I use a steam iron which works really well.

At each stem the Dacron is wrapped around and adhered using Heat N’ Bond.

The Dacron is now glued to the stem using an iron.

Heat N’ Bond is applied to the end of the stem so that the Dacron on the left had side can be attached.

A final check to see if the Dacron is taut all around.

Now the excess cloth is trimmed away.

The cloth is given three coats of marine spar varnish to render the hull water tight.

The boat is now like new and ready for many more launches.

One really fun thing about these little boats is that the translucent skin lets you see the water passing by as you paddle.  Here the boat is lying in shallow water and you can see bubbles clinging to the hull.

The wind was so bad that I had to wait for a calmer day to paddle out in the refurbished lightweight.  Here is a view from mid-ships in the lightweight canoe on a sparkling clear fall day on Long Lake.

Notice that the waterline is visible that the sun reflects off the waves and onto the covering.