Chine bLog

There is logic to this, but I won't get into it. Suffice it to say that I had recently been thinking about the wooden dories and river boats indigenous to the American West. I don't know much about these boats and have never been in one, so I don't think about them much (of course, that means nothing, since I think a lot about lots of boats I have never been in - let's move on...). Well, lo and behold, if my nightly missive from the good people at Google didn't bring me a little something on the subject (courtesy of The Statesman Journal form Salem, Oregon). I guy named Roger Fletcher from Oregon has just written a book about these boats that is the culmination of his exhaustive research into them. He literally resurrected 13 designs (publishing 11) from the dead and has now preserved them. The boat is called Drift Boats and River Dories: Their History, Design, Construction, and Use, and it looks like a great resource. I certainly am inclined to raise a toast to Mr. Fletcher's efforts - we need people like him to make sure great designs and the thinking behind them remain available.

I particularly liked a few passages from the article that found me:

"My passion for boats is tied to the parallels I see between the river and how one runs this course we call life," Fletcher said. "The river is wonderful medicine for the river of life. That sounds kind of hokey, but that's where my passion is. I enjoy fly fishing and I enjoy getting out, but that isn't what pulls me. It's the river itself, and the people who share the passion."

His research, the hard work that it was, sucked him in... this led me down a path that brought me in touch with a variety of marvelous people whose passion for rivers and river people surpasses my own..." By telling the story of those people, he also tells the story of the boats.

"What I've done is define the key points in time in the evolution of boats -- what caused the builder to quit building a square-end boat and start building a double-ended boat," Fletcher said. "What were the circumstances, what experiences did he have and how did he do it? I discovered the history of these boats and my natural curiosity took over. These boats are Oregon's unique contribution to the wooden boat world, and that has become more and more obvious as I've done the research."

Location: Oregon, USA

Canoe Rig: The Essence and the Art, Sailpower for Antique and Traditional Canoes, by Todd Bradshaw, is one of those books that stakes out a new piece of turf in your mind. In this case, that turf is the possibilities of adding spars and canvas to the traditional canoe. Bradshaw presents, in great, well-illustrated detail, a set a rig options and associated hardware for setting sail in a canoe. He also outlines, canoe background and sailing theory, as well as I have seen it done. His artwork captures the concepts amazingly well.

The canoe, as my father noted in flipping through the book, is not the most obvious choice for conversion to a sailing rig. Bradshaw seems to accept this point, noting that the sailing experience in some of the scenarios he sketches out is fairly exciting and that one may need more attention to matters hand than one does in, say, a Flying Scot. Maybe that is what is so compelling to me about the book - it presumes traditional designs and hardware yet sketches out a world we don't think about. It is not new, of course - many ideas come from the days of Rushton. The arts of this little realm of boating, though, have been lost to modern options, and Bradshaw's rescue of them is as commendable as it is exciting. As is apparent, my idea of adventure involves the small, simple, and traditional. Bradshaw's rigs taking an able adventure craft and give it new possibilities. This one is definitely a keeper.

One of my recent fascinations is skin-on-frame boats (and, if I read my blog stats correctly, others also have this interest). For those with this interest, I recommend Building Skin- On-Frame Boats by Robert Morris. It is an easy read with a good mix of theory, practice, and background. Mr. Morris is a real seat-of-the-pants builder - literally. He teaches customized kayak design via seating oneself on the floor and measuring key dimensions with your fist and other "at hand" tools, just the way the Inuit did. Pretty cool to imagine these people figuring this out with driftwood and seal-skin. That's is some genius.

Mr. Morris' shop is Brewery Creek Small Boat Shop in Vancouver.