Dugout Canoe Project

The Adventurer, Vernon Wade

Vernon was born in the Pacific Northwest and still lives in the shadow of Mt. Hood, near the small town where he grew up. Vernon has spent decades wandering the hills, hunting mushrooms, camping and riding motorcycles into the remotest nooks and crannies to be found in the region.

cottonwoodI got a notion to try my hand at making a dugout canoe. A neighbor up the road gave me a cottonwood log and even helped me load it. Joel loaned me a trailer and Mike helped me retrieve the log last month. It’s been sitting in my driveway ever since.

 

 

barking SpudYesterday, Robert came over and we used a peavey to turn the log over and a spud to debark it. We shaved off a few small branches with a hewing ax and an adze. Hewing ax Hewing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we wrapped a choker around the log and used the truck to drag it down to the shop, where we built a cradle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike showed up to share the fun and the three of us used the peavey, a lever, some chocks, brute force and ignorance to roll it up onto the cradle. That pretty much finished us for the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think the next step will be measurements marked onto the log and shaving it down to a symetrical shape. If I botch it or find it to be too ambitious of undertaking, it may become firewood. Time will tell.

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