Contact me at: rrcp@mts.net or by phone 204.878.2524

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Lots of stuff goes on in this shop, located in Lorette, Manitoba.

Primarily it's the building and repair of classic wood & canvas canoes, and the making of premium canoe paddles. I also do custom boat building, composite fabrication, and special projects. A growing passion of mine is the making of classical guitars, I'll post about that, too.


I want to be able to share with my clients the progress of their commissioned work. Later I started thinking that there might be other people who are interested in what goes on inside a wooden canoe shop operated by an artist and a recovering teacher.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me by email, phone, or by post. My mailing address is:

Red River Canoe & Paddle
24249 River Rd
Lorette, Manitoba
Canada
R5K 0Z6




Monday 8 November 2010

Once in awhile you get to work on your own canoe, and now's a time for me. This is the first and only canoe that I have ever bought. Its an old Peterborough Minetta.

Now I have a Peterborough Canoe collection! My first wood & canvas canoe was a Peterborough Otonobee that was given to me as a project. A couple of years ago I was give a real wreck of a Peterborough Dart. I am determined to get these three canoes full restored and into service, and I'll blog about those projects in their turn.

The Minetta is in the same design family as the Champlain, Mermaid, and Otonobee. Peterborough referred to this group of canoes as their "Pleasure" canoes. The Mermaid is the 14', the Minetta is the 15', the Champlain is the 16'. The Otonobee is also 16', be has finer ends, a higher sheer, a more rounded stem, and is trimmed in Mahagony.
This particular canoe is in very good shape as it was stored indoors for many years. Its varnish has darkened over time and I am trying to decide whether to leave it or strip and revarnish. It doesn't need to be stripped the way that some canoes do, but I'm thinking that I'd like to get it back to a very clean state.
Serial numbers clearly stamped on the inner stem make a good ID so much easier!

Even the seat cane is good!

1 comment:

Bob Easton said...

What a beauty! It's amazing to see one in such great shape.

If you were to strip and redo the varnish, what would you do (if anything) to preserve the decal?

Thanks for the blog and the great pics!