One day, early in September, I received, not one but two emails regarding Greenwood Canoes. Being an Ontario refugee (Ottawa and Peterborough), I’d only recently learned about Greenwood Canoes and had yet to work on one, although I had tried to buy one a couple of times. The first of these emails concerned Mike’s Greenwood, which I wrote about in my earlier post “The Greenwood & The Old Oak Tree“. The second one from Dan read as follows:
“I’ve got an old Greenwood if you’re interested. It’s without canvas, has rot at ends and some of the ribs seem a bit punky. I prepped cedar planking, intending to do the rebuild but never got anywhere. Can send photos if interested.”
Dan did send me along some pictures and a few days later I went down to Victoria to look at his canoe. It turns out she was a Greenwood Prospector model with half ribs. As he’d said in his email, she was without canvas, rotten in places and missing several planks. A previous, misguided, would be restorer, had also tried to seal the planks with some kind of adhesive. However, Bill Greenwood’s amazing workmanship was clear to see. Even in her neglected condition she was a beauty.
As I’m sure you can imagine, it wasn’t long before Dan and I were shaking hands. The issue then became how to get a 16ft Greenwood canoe, and several 18ft bundles of canoe planking, onto or into my little truck and home to Duncan. The solution turned out to be pretty simple. We simply loaded the planks into the canoe, then lifted it upright onto the roof of my truck. We then used lots and lots of straps to secure everything. I can tell you, I got some funny looks driving over the Malahat. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of it with the planks hanging out the back of the canoe.
Dan’s Faber Canoe
