First Step Completed

Well, the all essential first step is completed...I bought a canoe. It's an old Grumman canoe like maybe out of the 60's or 70's that I found on Craig's List. (I'll research the exact birth date in a few days.) Locating this canoe was desireable and important to me because it is the real deal. Grumman manufactured airplanes for the US government during WW II. After the war Grumman had lots of raw materials laying around the yard and no more orders for airplanes, so they started building canoes from their residual stock. This was the good stuff. This was the stuff they used to make airplanes and that is what I wanted. 

Grumman has evolved through some changes over the decades and they still make a great canoe, but I feel good about having one of the originals. Even the Grummon logo is painted on. How often do you see that anymore?

The original owner was an older man who bought the canoe new for $1200 (a lot of money for a canoe back then) for his grandchildren when they came to visit. Well the grandchildren came to visit year after year but they never even got the canoe wet one time. The man needed some quick cash one day and sold the canoe to the second owner, a good friend of his.

The second owner had been canoeing a northern New York river each fall since about 1960 but this canoe never made it to the river. It has been sitting in his barn for many years just waiting for me to come by and put it to good use. Even though I am the third owner, I sort of feel like the original owner because the canoe has been sitting idle for decades just waiting to be used for a special event.

My plans are to polish this canoe to a mirror shine and spray on a coat of pickup bed liner on the interior of the canoe to help protect it. I'll be starting that project in a couple of days.