Last week I heard a familiar sound, some strange croaking birds sounds.  Sure enough, looking up into the sky I spotted this flock of Sandhill Cranes riding the thermals and heading who knows where.


 

I took down my old 29 gallon shop aquarium and put up this long 40 in is place.  No more Giant Vallesneria in this tank!  With leaves that grow to 6' long and over 1" wide, its just too big and aggresive for these smaller, shorter, tanks.  I'm liking how this one is looking so far, just some Cryptocoryne and Sagitarria Sublata, and one Amazon Sword in it so far.  I'm hoping to keep either German blue Rams or some Apistogramma in there, and some Cardinal Tetras.

Yes, the water really is tea coloured like that.  Its the tannins from the wood.  Good for fish!

 

 

The old Kildonan freighter canoe is nearing completion!  Yeah!  This old boat was really beat up when it came in, it falls into the category of "Its probably better to just build a new boat".  New inwales, deck, stems, transom, many rib repairs, sanding, painting, etc.

Here you can see the new bow stem installed and the stern stem being laminated and installed.  Sometimes I prefer to laminate up a new stem in order to have the curve match up exactly to where it needs to go.  Steam bending always has some springback and its difficult to match to an old boat exactly.  The inned has a small knee added to it and the transom mounts to this.  There is an inner and an outer stern stem, the outer will be a continuation of the keel.

 

 

 

 

Yes, I know that I haven't posted much recently.  I've been pretty busy catching up from my time away working on Fort Severn.  Part of that included taking a week off to continue the renovations in my basement.  Back in 2007 I gutted out and started rebuilding the entire basement.  I am closing in on being done!  The recent project was to remove the bathroom shower and install a new one.  Needess to say, nothing simple is ever as simple as it looks.

Also, our 35 year old concrete septic tank had to be replaced, so a backhow dug a great big hole for the new tank and the old one was filled in with sand.  We had a new water softener put in, too.  After seeing all of that work done I can say that I'd rather just work to earn the money to pay them.

 

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.