26 June 2026 – I stand on my dear friends’ dock in rural Ontario, soaking up the Ontario/Quebec landscape that has shaped me: rock, water, trees.
The granite of the Canadian Shield; the lakes carved by slow-passing glaciers; the mixed forests woven throughout.
And that canoe.
We are thinking watercraft, and love of watercraft, and especially of canoes. We are about to visit the Canadian Canoe Museum, with its plus-650 examples of canoes, kayaks and paddled watercraft — primarily from coast-to-coast-to-coast Canada, but also from all parts (and eras and cultures) of the world. It is the world’s largest, and most significant, collection of such craft, much of it donated by people who have finally found a worthy forever-home for their own collections.
Really, though, you best understand this worldwide phenomenon through the love and skills of one human being, someone now carrying on that tradition. For example, Brian Cook, who is taking a few weeks from his Cook Craft home base in Dwight, Ontario, to serve as the June 2026 Builder in Residence at the museum.
In the workshop, he demonstrates the stages of the work involved, talking with visitors, sharing the lore with them, responding to their own knowledge and passion and interest.
I gesture to this splendid green canoe, on display against the wall, and ask if it is part of the Museum’s collection.
He is horrified. “No! It’s mine! I built it, I use it, it is part of my life, some day they’ll bury it with me.”
Brian was mentored in these skills by an older master of canoe-building, Jack Hurley. I tell him about the high school students in Gananoque who, with mentorship, have now built a St. Lawrence skiff. He quickens with interest, and I promise him photos.
Almost at the end of our trip up the St. Lawrence River, the Canadian Empress stopped in this community, which sits at the heart of the Thousand Islands and is just east of Kingston where the waters of Lake Ontario flow into the mighty river. It is, appropriately, home to the Thousand Islands Boat Museum. Unlike the Canadian Canoe Museum, with its world-wide scope (though Canadian emphasis), this museum is devoted entirely to the watercraft of this one specific region within the St. Lawrence River.
Even before opening their doors, the museum launched its youth boat-building program, part of the museum’s focus on reconnecting local kids with their own river.
The first project? A faithful reproduction of the iconic St. Lawrence skiff — the double-ended work and pleasure boat essential to island farmers’ lives from the 19th century until power boats took over in the 1930s or so.
More than 100 high school students took part. This is what they built.
When the little museum opened its doors in 2014, Skiffy was launched, at the heart of the collection.
Obvious differences between these two museums, only 206 km. apart: One, on the shores of Little Lake just outside Peterborough, Ontario, founded in 1997 and now displaying its extensive collection both in the museum and through the glass walls of the storage area…
and one on the shores of the St. Lawrence River, which opened its doors in 2014, and houses a much more modest collection.
They are united, however, in what matters: their love for this living heritage, and their determination to preserve and enhance all that it encompasses.
WALKING WOMAN 