Some of the canoes from Peterborough area builders in the Canadian Canoe Museum (in Peterborough of course).
Aerial view showing the industries of downtown Peterborough, circa 1918
One of the earliest aerial photos of Peterborough, taken before this Hunter Street bridge was demolished in 1920 to make way for the current structure. Downtown Peterborough before World War I was filled with industry. Of all the industries noted here, only Quaker Oats remains: 1) Quaker Oats Company of Canada, 2) Flour mill of the Peterborough Cereal Company, 3) Peterborough Gas Works, 4) Denne Warehouse (Dewart Mills), 5) First Peterborough Canoe Company factory, 6) Freight terminal, 7) J.J. Turner and Sons, 8) Peter Hamilton Company, 9) Former Peterborough Boating Club boathouse, 10) Ackerman Harness Company, 11) Campbell Flour Mills Company and Maple Leaf Mills, 12) Second Canadian Canoe Company Factory, 13) Central Bridge and Engineering Company, 14) CPR station, 15) Calcutt Brewing and Malting Company, 16) Otonabee grain mill, and 17) Site of the Ontario Canoe Company factory. (Courtesy of the Trent Valley Archives – Stan McBride Collection)
Cover of book by Ken Brown that is very useful.
Some info from various online sources about the history of canoe building in Peterborough….which I thought might be of some interest so I’ve reproduced it here:
The following was originally on the Peterborough Museum and Archives, http://www.peterboroughmuseumandarchives.ca/canoe.htm (but now appears to have been taken offline):
Introduction
Origins of the Industry
John Stephenson began to build and sell canoes in the late 1850s as a sideline to his main business with the Stephenson and Craigie planing mill (located at the present site of the Quaker Oats tennis courts). Gradually, he began to spend more time constructing canoes in order to meet the growing demand, first with a small factory at the foot of Lake St. on Little Lake, and later another, located on Elizabeth Street (now Hunter St.) in Ashburnham.
Birth of the Peterborough Canoe Company
A fire on May 9,1892 completely destroyed the factory and all the lumber and models of the Ontario Canoe Co. The loss was estimated at $25,000 and there was no insurance. Mr. John Burnham and J. S. Rogers decided to rebuild, and on October 5, 1892 work began on a new factory at the corner of Water and King Streets in Peterborough, on the site of the original Adam Scott mill. It opened on February 15, 1893 under the name of the Peterborough Canoe Company, and employed 50 skilled workers.
Across the street (south side of King Street on the bank of the Otonabee River) was a large boathouse built by the Peterborough Boating Club. In the 1870s and 1880s this club produced several champion rowers. The club became dormant after 1891 when the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) built a spur line along the shore of the Otonabee, effectively cutting off the boathouse from the river.
By 1892, the company offered 120 different canoe models. Besides the popular basswood and cedar rib canoes, the company also built cedar rib longitudinal strip canoes, duck boats, smooth-skin and lap-streak skiffs, sailing canoes and 20 to 50 foot steam launches . Peterborough Canoe Company also manufactured camping goods, furniture and office fittings and gradually diversified its product line to include rocking verandah chairs, hand painted decoys, and sun stop shades. (The sun shades became so successful that it eventually developed into the Ventilating Shade Company). In later years, the company also produced water skis and surfboards.
Birth of the Canadian Canoe Company
On April 25, 1893, the Canadian Canoe Company began to manufacture canoes and skiffs at its factory at the corner of Brock and Water Streets. It later moved to George and Dalhousie Streets, and then, in 1911, it moved to a new three story building on Rink Street where the company employed about 30 workers.
By 1902, the three canoe factories in Peterborough employed a total of 60 workers. The growth of the industry during the first decade of the century was reflected by the expansion of the operations so that by 1908, there were 90 people employed in the canoe factories of Peterborough. The workers sought to organize themselves and there was a brief strike at the Canadian Canoe Co. in May 1919, but the union failed to secure higher wages or recognition of the union from management.
Growing Pains…
The 1920s marked a turning point in the history of canoe building in Peterborough. Declining supplies of suitable wood in the local area, combined with the growing popularity of outboard motors, led to leaner times and considerable restructuring.
A smaller competitor of both the Canadian and Peterborough Canoe companies, the William English Canoe Company, was one of the earliest canoe factories. This picture was taken in front of the factory at 182 Charlotte Street where the company operated from 1861 to 1915. This manufacturer seldom employed more than 10 people, and most were family members. (Courtesy of Jim English)
The English Canoe Co. began operations in 1861 using a design by John Stephenson. Originally established by William English, it was later carried on by his brothers Samuel and James. The factory was located at 182 Charlotte Street, in Peterborough, and it employed six people.
The company was noted for its basswood, cedar and butternut wide board and cedar strip designs, as well as cedar rib canoes. White cedar was later combined and used alternately with butternut and walnut to produce beautiful watercraft.
The English Canoe Co. ceased operations in the early 1920s; their moulds and patterns were bought by the Peterborough Canoe Co.
The Peterborough Canoe Co. bought out the William English Canoe Company. In 1923, both the Peterborough Canoe Co. and the Canadian Canoe Co. joined the Chestnut Canoe Company of New Brunswick to form the Canadian Watercraft Company, a holding company with shares split evenly between Peterborough and Fredericton shareholders. Will and Harry Chestnut had set up the Chestnut Co. in 1897, after they had developed the first canvas-covered canoes in Canada. These canoes were rugged and economical and had become stiff competition for the cheapest and most popular models of the Peterborough Canoe Co.
Under the new arrangement, the Chestnut Co. would concentrate on the canvas canoe market while the Canadian Canoe Co. would build both canvas and wood canoes and specialize in those designed for use with an outboard motor. The Peterborough Canoe Co. continued to offer its wide range of spin-off products.
A fire in 1927 destroyed the Rink St. factory of the Canadian Canoe Co. Rather than rebuild the factory, and continue operations as a separate enterprise, it was decided in 1928 to sell out to the Peterborough Canoe Company.
Meanwhile, to adjust to the new market conditions, the Peterborough Canoe Co. secured the dealership rights to the Johnson Motor Company for all of Canada (excepting British Columbia). They had difficulty getting the spare parts required to service the motors that they sold, however, so they approached the Johnson Motor Co. with the suggestion that a manufacturing facility be opened in Peterborough to provide parts. In 1928, the Johnson Motor Co. opened a 30,000 square foot factory on Monaghan Road that employed 17 people. By 1936, the merger of the Johnson Co. with Outboard Motors led to the creation of the Outboard Marine and Manufacturing Company; they produced Johnson, Evinrude and Elto outboard motors, along with a wide range of other products over the years.
Peterborough: Canada’s Boat Building Capital
By 1930, 25% of all employees in the boat building industry of Canada worked in the Peterborough area. These companies included the Brown Boat Company and the Lakefield Canoe and Boat Company, along with the Peterborough Canoe Co., the Canadian Canoe Co., J.B. O’Dette and Son, the Otonabee Boat Works, and the Canadian Johnson Motor Co. (Boat Division). It was estimated that approximately 12% of the products were exported to markets in the United States and Europe. Although the canoe companies continued to be profitable ventures throughout the 1930s and 1940s, the employees were forced to accept significant wage cuts. According to one former employee, just prior to the World War II, the company had cut single mens’ wages in half and married mens’ wages by a third. Factory workers were now getting paid 12 cents an hour with no time and a half for overtime.
During World War Two, the Peterborough Canoe Co. produced a number of products for the war effort, including pontoons for building bridges, assault boats, RCAF crash boats, naval tenders, bomb loading dinghies and shell boxes. In early 1940, the entire production of new snow skis was shipped via Northern Quebec to Finland to help resist an invasion by the Soviet Union.
Decline of the Industry
As Canada entered the 1950s, the local canoe industry continued to play a prominent role in the local economy. As of 1949, the Peterborough Canoe Co. was employing 150 people and exports accounted for 10% of production. By the mid-1950s, 75 % of all canoes made in Canada were manufactured by four companies, and three of the four were located in and around Peterborough – the Peterborough Canoe Co., the Canadian Canoe Co., and the Lakefield Canoe Co. The Chestnut Canoe Co. was the other main manufacturer of canoes.
The diversification of the product line of the original canoe companies helped them to profit from the economic boom in the early 1950s. In 1953, the Manager of the Peterborough Canoe Co., Jack Richardson, stated that sales were “a way above the total for any recent year” and “the demand for paddles is so great…(we) can’t keep up with production.” As a result, the company began to invest in new facilities. By 1956, the Peterborough Canoe Co. was the largest single boat manufacturer in Canada, selling over 8,000 boats annually with sales of over $1.5 million.
Buoyed by this prosperity, the Peterborough Canoe Co. undertook plans for expansion. In 1947, fourteen acres of land had been purchased on Monaghan Road for the construction of a new finishing mill. The larger facilities were expected to increase production by 25%. The Peterborough Canoe Co. moved into its new facilities in the mid-1950s. Meanwhile, in 1958 the Canadian Canoe Co. moved into the old Peterborough Canoe Co. factory on Water St.
By the late 1950s however, the canoe companies were experiencing serious financial difficulties. The $1 million cost of moving into the new facilities was twice the anticipated cost.
In 1957, it was estimated that approximately 4,000 canoes were sold in Canada. However, compared with the increase in population, there were fewer canoes being sold per capita despite the greater number of people spending their holidays involving some sort of water recreation. There was much greater interest in motorboats and sales began to reflect this change in the market. The 1950s also witnessed the introduction of new aluminum and fiberglass canoe models that began to undermine the market for the wooden canoes. The latter were more expensive, as they required more skill and time to produce, and were made of more costly materials.
The canoe companies of Peterborough tried to accommodate the introduction of other boat building technologies, but met with limited success. The Peterborough Canoe Co. began to produce aluminum canoes in 1957 and fibreglass boats around 1956, but they did not go into full production until 1961. Though the craftsmen were skilled with wood, they had difficulty mastering the new skills necessary for working with resins and producing fiberglass canoes. As a result, they had to learn through trial and error as they went along, and the company began producing a large number of “seconds”, reflecting poorly on the reputation of the company.
The unionization of the employees in 1955 brought increased labour costs along with the elimination of piecework overtime. Overall, the combination of an expensive relocation, higher labour costs, questionable management practices, and the difficulties encountered in trying to adapt to the new canoe technologies, along with a more competitive market place, forced the canoe factories to close in the early 1960s.
In 1960, the Canadian Canoe Co. ceased manufacturing and filed for bankruptcy with debts of over $ 2 million. With the collapse of the Canadian Canoe Co. operations, it was decided to split up the Canadian Watercraft Co. that had acted as a holding company since 1924. As a result, the Peterborough Canoe Co. and the Chestnut Canoe Co. carried on independently of each other.
The Peterborough Canoe Co. lasted another couple of years, but it too, ended up filing for bankruptcy in 1962. The Chestnut Canoe Co. obtained the moulds, patterns and patents of the Peterborough Canoe Co. and continued to build canoes at its factory in Oromocto, New Brunswick until 1978; yet it too had to fold following a major expansion in 1974.
Additional Canoe Companies in the Peterborough Region
The Herald Canoe Company
Thomas Gordon Canoe Company – Strickland Canoe Company – Lakefield Canoe Company
Thomas Gordon was building canoes for sale in Lakefield since the late 1850s under the name of the Thomas Gordon Canoe Co., while in 1860 the Strickland Canoe Co. was established.
In 1892, Robert Strickland founded Strickland and Co. to produce board canoes. The name of the firm was changed to the Lakefield Canoe Works in 1900.
In 1904, Gordon and Strickland combined and reorganized the business as the Lakefield Canoe Co. This firm was eventually absorbed into the Lakefield Canoe and Manufacturing Co., which was established in 1918 by E.R. Tate.
In 1937, it was reorganized again and became the Lakefield Canoe and Boat Co. under the direction of George Cook. It changed to Lakefield Boats Ltd. in 1942, and was then bought out by Rilco Industries in 1962, which continued to operate until 1970.
In 1909, Gilbert Gordon, son of Thomas Gordon, began to build canoes in Bobcaygeon. Some canoes had been built there for a number of years in a boathouse operated by Dr. Thorne. In 1926, Charles Gordon began operating the business under the name of the Gordon Boatworks Co.
James G. Brown started up the Brown Boat Co. of Lakefield in 1887. He had worked with Thomas Gordon for a while before starting up his own business. Brown manufactured canvas freight canoes and cedar strip canoes. The business continued until 1938.
From the Canada Science and Technology Museum, the Curator’s Choice, Canoes: The Shapes Of Success, http://www.sciencetech.technomuses.ca/english/collection/canoes.cfm:
Introduction
There is perhaps no technology more intimately connected to the Canadian identity than the canoe. This association stems from a variety of factors: historic, geographic and, indeed, aesthetic. Yet, for this connection truly to flourish, for the history, geography and simple beauty of the canoe to excite the collective imagination, direct contact and experience with the technology itself were essential. Commercial canoe production, beginning in the 1860s, was the catalyst for this relationship, for, with commercial production, the canoe become available to a broad and appreciative public. Canoes: The Shape of Success, the exhibit on display at the Canada Science and Technology Museum (CSTM), explores both the early history of commercial canoe building in Canada and the subsequent evolution of the canoe as a national icon.
Employees of the Herald Bros. Canoe Co. factory, Gore’s Landing (Rice Lake), Ontario, ca 1890. (CSTM 940346)
The “Canadian”
In the history of recreational boating in Canada, the canoe enjoys a place of special prominence. This is true both within Canada-where the canoe has become a fixture of summer camps, resorts and wilderness expeditions-and beyond our borders, where the distinctive style of watercraft we recognize simply as a “canoe” is in other countries known as a “Canadian.”
The basic form of the commercially built Canadian canoe was derived directly from bark and dugout traditions of First Peoples. Inspired by the innate qualities of the shape and performance of these traditional watercraft, a variety of techniques was developed to construct this superb aboriginal watercraft, first from wood and later from other materials. As production expanded to meet a growing middle-class interest in outdoor recreation, 19th-century sportsmen saw the Canadian canoe as something distinct requiring definition. Thus, one observer writing for Forest and Stream (Dec. 29, 1887, p. 456) under the pen name “Retaw,” offered this account of the salient characteristics of the Canadian canoe form: “sharp lines…broad flat floor…[and] slight tumble home of the topsides.”
Pioneers in the Field
The commercial history of the Canadian canoe began in the second halfthe19th century, notably concentrated in the region around the city of of Peterborough, Ontario. The principal players in the formative years were John Stephenson of Ashburnham, Thomas Gordon of Lakefield, William English of Peterborough and Daniel Herald of Gore’s Landing on Rice Lake. Examples of the canoes built by these men or their companies are still in evidence around the world. Yet, of these pioneers, only the legacy of Daniel Herald’s commercial operations, begun in 1862, has been preserved in any depth.
Daniel Herald, canoe builder, designer, innovator and founder of the Rice Lake Canoe Co., ca 1870. (CSTM 940349)
Canoe mould for construction of the Herald’s Patent Cedar Canoe. (CSTM 940387)
This rare material, consisting of photographs, order books, plans, certificates, trade literature, tools, and patterns and moulds, constitutes the Daniel Herald-Rice Lake collection at the Canada Science and Technology Museum. While this collection is a unique record of an important company in the commercial history of the Canadian canoe, it is also one of the finest and fullest material records of 19th-century boat building as a business enterprise in North America. As such, it also provides an important view of the social and economic history of outdoor recreation in Canada.
Explanatory drawing from Herald’s Boat and Canoe Mould patent of 1871
The Herald’s Patent Cedar Canoe
Although the canoe company founded by Daniel Herald produced a variety of canoe models, the most celebrated of his product line was the Herald’s Patent Cedar Canoe. The patent in the name, dating to 1871, refers specifically to the design of the mould used in the building of this model. Herald developed a technique of double-skin construction, in which the patent mould was key. The resulting canoe was greatly valued for its exceptional strength and smooth, ribless interior. Hunters and fishers found the latter feature was kinder to the knees and made cleaning the canoe much easier. Here it is worth noting that Rice Lake, where Herald developed this canoe, was a place much favoured for both hunting waterfowl and fishing.
Herald’s Patent Cedar Canoe, ca 1880.
Among the three moulds in the Daniel Herald-Rice Lake collection is a Herald’s Patent mould (940387*). The actual Herald’s Patent Canoe in the small-craft collection of CSTM is a painted model that dates to 1880 and is marked on the foredeck with Daniel Herald’s builder’s stamp (980007). Acquired from an individual in the United States, the canoe’s provenance suggests a lineage of four previous owners going back to the original buyer who lived in the Moosehead Lake area of Maine.
Detail of the Herald’s Patent Cedar Canoe, ca 1880, showing Daniel Herald’s stamp on the foredeck.
Building A Business
While the mould and the canoe itself most obviously embody the physical fact of production, commercial canoe manufacturing required skills and investment in a variety of areas: design (ideas and plans), construction (tools and techniques), promotion (catalogues and exhibitions), and business operations (infrastructure, record keeping). This exhibit offers material insight from the Daniel Herald-Rice Lake collection in all of these areas.
Certificate awarded to Herald Bros. at the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893. (CSTM 940332)
For example, the collection includes a fine lines drawing of a canoe (940328). Such drawings were used in developing designs. They served as two-dimensional, scaled-down plans of the intended shape. Notable among the tools in the collection are various patterns, including a set of four very fine basswood plank patterns used to trace out the boards that formed the hull of the canoe (940393). Patterns were also used for a variety of other pieces, including paddles, and a selection of these is on display.
Herald Bros. canoe catalogue, ca 1892. This and other canoe catalogues were illustrated by John David Kelly, a well-known artist and graphic designer who grew up at Gore’s Landing. He was a good friend of the Heralds as well as an avid canoeist. (CSTM L31537)
The all-important promotional component of the canoe-building business is well represented by a series of Rice Lake catalogues, and by two large diplomas from trade fairs, including one from the celebrated Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893 (940332). (Because of the fragile nature of these documents, high-quality photographic facsimiles are used in the exhibit.)
The participation and success of Canadian canoe companies at these events underline their proprietors’ desire to develop a national and international clientele. Evidence of just such a market for this quintessentially Canadian product can be found in a small sample of order books preserved in the Daniel Herald-Rice Lake Collection.
Different Strokes
Although the Daniel Herald-Rice Lake collection offers special insight into the operations of early commercial canoe builders, the business founded by Daniel Herald was just one of several pioneer canoe companies. Another noteworthy firm was the Wm. English Canoe Co’y. According to company advertising, William English claimed the honour of having opened the very first canoe “factory” in Peterborough, Ontario, in 1861. English was not remembered for a signature model, such as the “Herald’s Patent” or the fabled “Peterborough Cedar Rib,” but he was a builder whose canoes were greatly admired for their high-quality workmanship. A very good example on display is a William English Cedar Strip canoe dating from about 1896 (960360). Today, cedarstrip construction is among the best known of the early wooden canoe types. Originally developed by J.S. Stephenson in 1883, the hull is made up of long strips of cedar running stem to stern, ship-lap joined one above the other. Near the gunwales, there is an aesthetically delightful accent strip in darker wood. The hull is strengthened internally by elegant half-round ribs fashioned from rock elm and arranged on two-inch (5-cm) centres. On the beautifully fashioned butternut foredeck, the maple-leaf logo of the Wm. English Canoe Co’y is still visible.
Cedarstrip canoe built by Wm. English Canoe Co’y, ca 1896. (CSTM 960360)
There is also interesting information on the Dragonfly Canoes website. http://www.dragonflycanoe.com/id/index.html, regarding wood canoe builders, including those from the Peterborough area.
Better yet visit the Canadian Canoe Museum, right in Peterborough.
Paddles up until later then….and paddle a ‘Peterborough’ canoe if you ever get the chance.
