freedom-15

In the name of space saving and other committments in the near future, I’ve decided that I should get rid of my strongback.

I finally really finished the canoe today! I hadn’t coated the inside of the canoe until this week, but timing and weather made it happen.

César’s Bark Canoe is a fantastic NFB (National Film Board) film from 1971, produced by Bernard Gosselin. It captures César Newashish, a 67-year-old Attikamek of the Manawan Reserve north of Montreal, building a canoe solely from the materials from the forest, including birchbark, cedar splints, spruce roots and gum.

Last weekend the family and I launched the Freedom for the first time. It wasn’t quite “finished” in that I hadn’t varnished it yet, but I wanted to wait for the weather to cool a bit before spraying the urethane.

After I installed the decks, I concentrated on finishing the outwales, seat placement and thwarts. The outwale install was okay but I had a couple of issues.

After installing the inwales I turned my attention to the decks. As usual, I pretty much followed the words of wisdom found in Canoecraft.

I started caning the stern seat last week, and so far it is going fine. I’m using the instructions from Gilpatrick’s book “Building A Strip Canoe,” and his descriptions and photos are very good.

I glued the inwales in a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t updated the blog because I’ve been going full-tilt on the canoe every chance I get, and I’ve been having some family fun camping in BC!

The gunwales are a work in progress while I wait to get a hold of a drill press so I can add some decent drain holes/slots.

I managed to get the first seat joined and glued last night. I opted to try and do mortise and tenon joints.