My friend Matthew Kakekaspan took me out on the Severn River in his restored canoe.  One of the first thingst that I noticed as he loaded up the canoe wa the two paddles that he put in for safety.  They looked almost exactly like the docunented Cree Paddles from over 100 years ago,just bigger!  I asked Mat if I could borrow it for awhile to document it.  I'll post the specs later.

 

 

A traditional paddle, since the arrival of motorized feighter canoes, is the pole paddle.  Stan Thomas called it a "Hunter's Paddle".  These are about 88" long, and the shaft and blade are each about 44" long.  The shaped tip is for purchase in the shallow gravel river beds.  When it wears done it is just re-shaped a little shorter.  The blade is flat on one face and shaped on the other.

I added a little artwork for the Creefest being held in Fort Severn this year, as well as some traditional cree paddle decoration.

 

 

 

 

The guys in the Fort Severn canoe shop getting the canvas on one of the canoes.

 

 

 

John Duncan, Federal Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development was in Fort Severn to announce the construction of a new school.  While in the community he and Kenora MP Greg Rickford dropped by the canoe shop to see what is going on.

 

 

A few photos from Fort Severn.

Early morning fog as seen from just outside my hotel room door.



Full moon over the community, from in front of my hotel room door.

The old Anglican church cemetary.

Boat and canoe anchored by the river bank at high tide.

My first opportunity to go for a walk about town and I get to see a house fire!  The building was an old and abaondoned house, nobody was hurt, though some of the local kids were alarmed at the sight.

Late evening sunshine, as seen from my hotel room door.

I had my camer out during some rain earlier this day, when I picked it up to take a couple of shots of the day's work this is what I saw!  At first I was dismayed, then I realized the potential.  The results look really old school without photoshop.

The old Catholic church as seen from the river.  This church is abandoned now.

 

I'm back from my most recent three week stint in Fort Severn.  By the time this session had concluded the shop program had put out 10 canoes.

One of the early tasks was to make up three sets of outer gunnels and three sets of keels.



Rib repairs on some of the canoes-in -waiting were started.

Canoes got sanded and painted.

And our 20' canoes were dwarfed by this leviathan.  The photo actually makes it look much bigger than it is, but it really is big.

 

I'm up in Fort Severn, Ontario, working on the canoe shop again.  I've been very busy and it was only just yesterday when I realized that I hadn't been posting.  I forgot the cable for downloading photos from my camera, too.  I'll post about the work up here once I get home.  I have one more week of work here.