Another/the last paddle building session for the summer, the boys group. Paddles are drying on the wall in the background.


one more picture of Mitigoka, sanded and ready for a second/final coat of color.


Miggwich means 'Big thanks' in Ojibwe. Miigwich was recanvassed last summer, and if currently in the quetico on a 17 day trip guided by Taylor Dzier....sounds like derzack. Here are some pictures of the finishjing touches. I've known taylor since first grade, i should be able to spell his last name.


Color coats on Miigwich.

Beginning to install teh outwales. in this picture you can see the top edge of the now-trimmed canvas. This edge, as well as the top of the horizontal planking that is just visible behind th canvas, are coverd neatly by a 'rabbited' outwale.



Using a hand drill to install brass-silicon woodscrews in the outwales.

Clamping the outwales in to place to get the right locati0on of the woodscrews.




Maiden voyage for the newly painted canvas on Miigwich. Now that's how you put a woodie in thw water off a dock without letting it touch the dock! yeah!

Off tehy go. Taylor is in the stern, and is guiding a 21 day Quetico session. he'll be in the quetico park wilderness for 17 days. The boat is unloaded in this picture because they are just paddling across bearskin to the van, where they have already loaded their gear and will load their canoes for a drive and drop-off on the north border of the park.

Okay, now just some pictures from around camp.


Finishing up sanding a few fine camper-made paddles.



Hand tied knots on the bottom of wicker seats in teh Jarvis canoe. the caning is being replaced by webbing, and just before i cut it out i realized that this was hand woven by some guy in Maine 70 years ago.

Tina and Charlotte waiting for a bait ride.


Night sauna with full moon.

Goodness its been busy in York Factory. Over the last two weeks we’ve had two paddle building sessions (three groups total), the Menogyn Rendezvous weekend, building inspection visit from some Y execs, and another canoeing Nor’wester heading out. Kelsey Johnson left on the 29^th with two plastic canoes, 24ish days of food, and four 11^th grade girls bound for rivers east of lake Winnipeg. A Nor’wester, for those of you who don’t know, is a trip here at Menogyn. It’s an invite only trip, meaning you are invited on the trip by former guides who believe you are ready for a30/32 (depending on the year and session), with 23ish days spent in the wilderness. There are backpacking and canoeing Nor’westers. The Canoeing Nor’westers are not whitewater-focused trips, but they do run whitewater, as it needed to travel the rivers they are on.

Since i don't have any pictures from this summer's Nor'westers, here are two from the Norwester i went on in 2006.

So, here’s Mitigoka. Mitigoka is a canoe built by Joe Seliga in Ely Minnesota in 73’. The serial number stamped in the ash stem reads 373354, so it was the third canoe he built in 1973, and it was his 254^th canoe. It’s not his 354^th canoe because joe didn’t want to be considered an amateur when he started building, so he started his boat count at 100. Thus, canoe number 354 is really canoe number 254. Joe built around 750 total.

Mitigoka after her first coat of color paint(on top of two coats of primer).

Engages(work campers) Shay and Harrison helping to clean and sand the interior.

Grinding out some stubborb bolts. Teh seats are fastened with bolts with nuts tighted underneat the seat, so if a washer is not used the bolt will sink up into the seat and be totally inaccessible to a wrench. Very little, however, is innaccessable to our grinder.

Putting the first coat of varnish (thinned) ont he sanded interior.

Mitigoka is the canoe I learned on last year. I did most of the restoration on this boat, instructed and supervised by Kelly Fulton. The stern stem was rotted at the top, so a new piece was made and ‘scarfed’ into place. Three broken ribs were removed and replaced, as well as a bit of planking. As with the stern stem, the inwales(the part of the gunwale on the inside of the canoe) and the point of the deck plate were also rotted. The rotten wood was cut away, and new wood was cut to exactly the shape needed. There is plenty of work on this canoe that would be different if I did it again now that I know the whole process, but I still think she’s turning out great.

In Ojibwe Mitigoka means “There is plenty of wood.” I don’t know the story behind the name. The canoe was bought from Seliga in the 70’s and was named than.

More!

Above: Fireflies lightin a fire! Below, just some pictures of goings on at Menogyn. Groups heading out on trips via canoe, groups leaving on longer trips via pontoon, my summer lodging.





About a week ago Nishime, our mostly restored 16' Old Town we were given last year, needed to go on trail. Most of our canoes are between 17 and 18 feet, which doesn't seem much bigger until you look at the inside of Nishime. the canoe is tiny! there is very little space for the bow-person's legs, and very small cargo space between the yolk and the two thwarts. Because of this, finishing Nishime's restoration was not at the top of my list. i didn't think anyone would want it. but of course, someone did. We almost ran out of canoes (we made it by a margin of three functional boats) last session, and one group (and mostly one guide) had the time to lend a hand finishing up Nishime, so we did it. We got two more coats of varnish on the interior, the same for the outwales, installed a yolk and pads, and bow and stern seats. David Lillian and i did get it done, but we made serious use or York Factory's new lights as we were up till 11pm finishing Nishime.

Summer of boats!

Here i am sanding prepared and cured canvas, getting it ready for a coat of primer.




So, who knows if these posts will be seen by more than three or four people, but i have ben telling certain folks for a while now that t4h eblog would be resurected this summer. Here goes.

I spent last summer as the apprentice under the canoemaster at menogyn. the canoe master maintains all of the canoes at the camp. We 25 or so wooden canoes, 8 Kevlar canoes, 20ish plastic canoes and 30ish aluminum grummans. The canoe master works on all the canoes, but some of them, namely the grummans, need little more than the occasional yolk pad replacement(the yolk pads, for those of you who don't know, are two pads that cushion the weight of the canoe on your shoulders when you are carrying it. Teh plastic canoes need new seats, thwarts, yolks and yolk pads every few years, and sometimes need to be patched before they head off on month+ trips to central and northern canada. The Wooden canoes are take up the most time. they need overhauls/restorations about once every 6 years, and this overhaul is a proces that can easily involve 50+ plus hours of focused work replacing broken and rotted wood, making replacement pieces, blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, this summer i am the "canoemaster" (that is my actual position title). I'll do more explanation of what i do in other posts, but this is all for now.

a photo of the shop and two canoes that are just about ready to have their canvases painted. these pictures are a few weeks old, the canoe on the right has since been painted bright red.

All of the wooden canoes get Ojibwe names. this one is called Nishime, meaning a little brother of sister. Nishime is a 16' Old Town that was built in the 50s.

This is a plastic canoe, a "Ranger" model from old town. It is is the only one left of its kind at menogyn, and has been around for quite a while, and it is a favorite of a few. it is one of the few plastic canoes that has a name; Jeremy. Not Ojibwe. It is in the process of getting sorta fixed. Mostly.

Ah more sanding.

as usual....

As usual, I have taken my sweet time updating the blog now that i'm back.  I cant imagine that there is anyone out there who still checks this thing at all regularily, but here goes anyway.  

I am back.  I had a splendid time.  many adventures.  Many mis-adventures.  Everything in-between.  

This computer will not accept my camera for some reason, so no pictures. Je suis desolee.

I am in Bourges. Later today I will be heading south to Provence via train. I have been having a great time, although the last few days have been rainy and cold. My picnic lunches have ben excellent; goat cheese from the region, wine from the region, and fresh bread from the gazzilion bakeries. All that, supplemented by ocasional additions, like duck patte, marinated mushrooms from a deli, and of course, fresh pastries. I should get to the train station, bu tnext time I can get on acomputer I'll get some pictures up! Thanks for reading!

Okay, so now that I am on a computer that doesn't cost 2€ every half hour for me to use, I have time to upload more and actually write a bit. The cityscape in the previous post was Venice, It's a picture from a couple weeks ago. On to these pictures. the top one is just a beautiful tree lined two lane highway that I biked down today. The trees are much bigger than they look; think taller than the really big elms in Minneapolis. The second picture is my beater bicycle one a bridge over the Loire, in front of some Little town whose name I can't recall. The Loire is a beautiful river, and the surrounding land is fantastic in it's diversity. There are pastures with cows and sheep, fields of vegetables, vineyards of course, and then there are the caves. The caves are from when they quarried the limestone for all the castles in the region. Peasants then lived in them, and most of them now are used for maturing wine or growing mushrooms. they might also be used for cheese making, but I'm not sure. One top of all this, there is also plenty of woods. The whole Loire Valley is a great patchwork of fields and towns and hamlets and woods and marshlands.

The Third and fourth pictures are from Mont St. Michel, in Normandy. I was in Normandy from the 12th to the 18th, biking from Caen to the D-Day beaches, to Mont St Michel. It's a wonderful area, just rather rainy. That last picture is from Point Du Hoc in Normandy, a famous site in the D-Day history. The picture is of a German gun emplacement bunker.

I am in Saumur, on the Loire River! My hundred euro replacement bike has been holding up great, although it looks and often sounds like it should have stopped working miles ago. I cannot put pictures onto the blog from this computer, but they are coming soon. It is much harder to get acces to the interent here than in rural minnesota. I have ben living of great cheese, excellent bread, and abundant pastries(the staple of my touring diet). Even though I have been on the Loire River for a fez days, I am about to enter the "LoireValley" which is the area famous for castles. The freelance camping is easy as pie here, now that I've gotten a feel for it. Anybody know anything About custums at the airport? What is allowed abd what is not? What happens if I get caught twith a piece of prohibited cheese or a bottle of wine? Do they even check? I should get back on the road, but within the next few days I'll get some pictures up. Thanks for reading.

well, I don't have long to post, because I am paying for every minute I spend on the internet, and the interent place I am in is closing soon.

My bike was stolen. Off a train, just outside Florence. It wasn't my touring bike, luckily, but it was still a bik eI hac put a lot of work into.

I am lookin gfor ideas. I am thinking that i will just buy a cheep clunker in a used bike shop in paris or another city. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Part of travelling is problems that arise. This is only a small obstacle. Thanks for reading.

Went to the Vatican yesterday, and took a few pictures. Most of it was indoors though, so there aren't a lot of pics. I also took a nice little bike bike ride in the big park in Rome, and there are a few pics from that as well.

Pictures!

We went on a tour of some of the old stuff today. I didn't end up taking all that many pictures, but here are a few. Thanks for reading.

I'm in Rome! Italy! I'm not going to write too much tonight, as I'm osrta running on not very much sleep. It's 8:30 here, and I just got back with the fam from dinner. I hadn't had areal meal since Tuesday, so a real meal, (in this case an excellent real meal) was much appreciated by mind and body. Explored the city a bit today on foot, intend to do more tomorrow, perhaps a bit by bicycle. The bike, by the way, made it just fine (i brought my trusty folding bike in a box). The fender took a prety big hit somewhere along the way, but better that than a wheel (or somethiung else important) getting wacked. Anyway, the bike will be a sort of secondary thing for a while, at least while we're in Rome. I'm so tired. Good night yall. spread the word; the blog is back. Thanks for reading.