Before we go any further, That’s not a typo; that’s the way I pronounce the word “Boat.” I’m from Minnesoota, where all double vowels have an elongated pronunciation. Think of saying “ooooh!” like you just ate the best nooodles. So this week we’ve been in “Boat camp” although it might sound like “Boooot Camp.”

Enough with the phonetics lesson. We stayed an extra day at the booaat shop (Thanks Joel) so we could epoxy some trouble spots and allow time to set up before the boat travels, plus finish up some detail stuff. Now we pack up our tools, scrap supplies, coffee cups and other loose stuff. It all fits in the car and we still have room for Rich.

We attach the gunnels and yoke to the canoe so it keeps its shape when we transport it at freeway speeds. We attached the gunnels yesterday and they look great. The yoke is sturdy and bolts to the gunnel reinforcements. When portaged, the canoe will hang from the yoke, so we use bolts and not screws. Screws would eventually tear out of the wood; bolts keep everything together.

We brought the strong back stations back to Portland. The spine stays in Port Townsend, eventually to be repurposed into another boat. We have a friend who wants to try his hand at building a wood strip canoe and he’ll be able to look at our boat to see what a finished version looks like.

All this packing reminds me of how I felt leaving Widjiwagen at the end of the summer. Everything went back in the car and we went back to the cities. Just like then, play-time is over and we have to get back to the other world where people expect us to do things. It’s not so bad—we’re retired, so the demands on our attention are nowhere near our college days. But this has been a fun week; away from normal routines and focused on a single project.

Janell gets the honor of carrying the canoe out of the shop and to the car. We should have provided our shop mates with kazoos so they could proceed us like a marching band on commencement day. Janell and I are surprised by the light weight and perfect balance: it only weighs forty-six pounds without seats.

There is a video of Janell and the canoe at the end of this eleven minute compilation. Eleven minutes is a long video, so I added some fun songs to keep you amused: Powerhouse by Raymond Scott, Sing Sing Sing, and Bugle Call Rag by Bennie Goodman and his Orchestra.