Canoe(dling)

 



Back a hundred years ago (or maybe 12 or so) when we bought our lake property it came with an old fiberglass canoe. (The place also came with an ancient 80’s era travel trailer that was quite disgusting, but we prefer to forget about that)

The canoe however did prove to be useful.  The mesh of its seats was so old that webbing was falling apart but given that, technically, you should be kneeling that seemed OK, at least for a while.....



What a mess



Our property is large and fronts on two (small) lakes.  One lake is quite open and that is where we chose to build our cottage.  The other lake is smaller and has several islands.  It is pretty to look at, but a tad (very) murky so not too pleasant to swim in.  The islands however create an excellent venue for canoeing.  As a result the canoe lived at that lake and was used from time to time if we hiked over there.

 Over the years it has not gotten any younger, or cleaner, and the seats were now fully destroyed.

 


 

So – we got the canoe back from the other lake and set to work cleaning the damned thing.  Check out the difference in colour between the dirty bits and the clean.  Luckily we have a power washer, and a power washer worker who is not me.

 


Seats were removed, and the old lacing discarded.



The remaining wooden frames got refinished.

 


 

Finally, the seats were restrung (Ta Da) - I of course did none of this.

 



And the updated canoe was placed proudly on our sophisticated trailer

 

Finely engineered but oddly, not road worthy

The good news, of course, is that it not only looks amazing – it still works as it should.  This shot is on the lake near the cottage.

 


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