SaltyD from BC
05-23-2007, 07:05 PM
There's a magazine out of the city in these parts (Vancouver BC, Canada) called Pacific Yachting. Its one of these main stream mags devoted to lots of lovely frozen snot production boats with price tags a didget or two beyond anything that I would consider. To their credit though, they in amongst all the sea trails of yachts and such, do the odd history piece and I've noted that they are supportive of the few little wood boat festivals around the BC coast.
Anyways, my wife bought me the April edition a while back and thumbing through it I was delighted to see an article about an all but forgotten little commercial salmon fishing row boat that was ubicudous (sp?) on the coast here a hundred years ago. The article is written by a boatbuilder and designer that I had not heard of :o - Larry Westlake of Sechelt BC. Here's a photo from his site:
http://westlakeboats.ca/plans/BrightsidesLoRez.jpg
Now for the most part when I think of history of the west coast of Canada I think that that whole idea is an oxymoron. I mean there just isn't much written about the local history especially up here. The good reason seems to be that its comparitively extemely recent! Folks talk about how the area was settled by non first nation people but hey that was grandpa's day, only a hundred years ago. Hardly 'history' right? Well I don't know for sure why, but compared to the wonderfull recording of history on the east coast of this continent with several centurys to talk about there just doesn't seem to be a hell of a lot written about the (recent) history around here.
There's a couple of noteable exceptions. There's a series of books called the west coast chronicles by various authors that mention the west coast hand liner. There's also our very own living legend Mr. Billy Proctor of Echo Bay who mentions them in his writings. (By the way, you folks cruising up to Alaska need to veer to the east a bit off north Vancouver Island to Echo Bay Gillford Island and check out Billy's museum. Well, he calls it his junk collection - but visitors are welcome!)
Anyways back to Larry Westlake's article. He says he first learned of the potential of these little fishing boats in 1991 on a 'save the straight' event where folks were paddling from Vancouver to the island as an awareness thing...
"Three quarters of the way across the 18 mile route, a battered black rowboat with a black haired man in a filthy black Tshirt, smeared with grease, came up quickly behind us and pulled into our pod of colourfull plastic kayaks. The boat was a 60 year old handliner rotting out inside a fibreglass wrap. The powerplant was a young heavty duty mechanic who had worked all night to finish a repair. With no time to clean up, he had.."
He goes on to say that they the guy had left an hour after them. They chatted for a bit and he bid them good bye. Some of the kayakers were a little miffed to be beaten by a 'row boat' and picked up the pace to to keep up. That didn't happen and he quickly disapeared ahead of them.
It seems that there are litterally a handfull of these boats left. Their design varies a bit from boat to boat as they were probably just built by eye. There are no plans in captivity except for lines taken by the author. He now sells plans. :cool: The boat pictured above is a close "replica" built in stitch and glue fashion. He also sells plans for traditional plank on frame boats, lines of which he took of one of the few remaining handliners.
It appears that other than a very few new builds of these boats, there is one original boat in the Campbell river museum, one in the Sechelt museum and a couple others in private hands. That's it. They were all but abandoned and forgot after world war 11 and the availability of dependable engines. In the early 1900s fisheries records show that there were likely over 1000 handliners working in the Georgia straight to Prince Rupert area in Canada. They were used up into Alaska as well and less so in Washington and Oregon. Interestingly the boats were not lapstrake but edge set planks. They were usually built on the beach where good quality Douglas fir and cedar logs were prevelant. There were a few professional builders, but many were built by their owners...
Anyways, my wife bought me the April edition a while back and thumbing through it I was delighted to see an article about an all but forgotten little commercial salmon fishing row boat that was ubicudous (sp?) on the coast here a hundred years ago. The article is written by a boatbuilder and designer that I had not heard of :o - Larry Westlake of Sechelt BC. Here's a photo from his site:
http://westlakeboats.ca/plans/BrightsidesLoRez.jpg
Now for the most part when I think of history of the west coast of Canada I think that that whole idea is an oxymoron. I mean there just isn't much written about the local history especially up here. The good reason seems to be that its comparitively extemely recent! Folks talk about how the area was settled by non first nation people but hey that was grandpa's day, only a hundred years ago. Hardly 'history' right? Well I don't know for sure why, but compared to the wonderfull recording of history on the east coast of this continent with several centurys to talk about there just doesn't seem to be a hell of a lot written about the (recent) history around here.
There's a couple of noteable exceptions. There's a series of books called the west coast chronicles by various authors that mention the west coast hand liner. There's also our very own living legend Mr. Billy Proctor of Echo Bay who mentions them in his writings. (By the way, you folks cruising up to Alaska need to veer to the east a bit off north Vancouver Island to Echo Bay Gillford Island and check out Billy's museum. Well, he calls it his junk collection - but visitors are welcome!)
Anyways back to Larry Westlake's article. He says he first learned of the potential of these little fishing boats in 1991 on a 'save the straight' event where folks were paddling from Vancouver to the island as an awareness thing...
"Three quarters of the way across the 18 mile route, a battered black rowboat with a black haired man in a filthy black Tshirt, smeared with grease, came up quickly behind us and pulled into our pod of colourfull plastic kayaks. The boat was a 60 year old handliner rotting out inside a fibreglass wrap. The powerplant was a young heavty duty mechanic who had worked all night to finish a repair. With no time to clean up, he had.."
He goes on to say that they the guy had left an hour after them. They chatted for a bit and he bid them good bye. Some of the kayakers were a little miffed to be beaten by a 'row boat' and picked up the pace to to keep up. That didn't happen and he quickly disapeared ahead of them.
It seems that there are litterally a handfull of these boats left. Their design varies a bit from boat to boat as they were probably just built by eye. There are no plans in captivity except for lines taken by the author. He now sells plans. :cool: The boat pictured above is a close "replica" built in stitch and glue fashion. He also sells plans for traditional plank on frame boats, lines of which he took of one of the few remaining handliners.
It appears that other than a very few new builds of these boats, there is one original boat in the Campbell river museum, one in the Sechelt museum and a couple others in private hands. That's it. They were all but abandoned and forgot after world war 11 and the availability of dependable engines. In the early 1900s fisheries records show that there were likely over 1000 handliners working in the Georgia straight to Prince Rupert area in Canada. They were used up into Alaska as well and less so in Washington and Oregon. Interestingly the boats were not lapstrake but edge set planks. They were usually built on the beach where good quality Douglas fir and cedar logs were prevelant. There were a few professional builders, but many were built by their owners...