Member Profile: Gary Shaver

Hello, my name is Gary Shaver. I live just south of our Nation's Capital in Greely, Ontario. I have been a member of the WCHA for about five years now and attended the Annual Meeting held recently in Peterborough. In preparation for retirement four years ago I built myself a 12' x 24' timber frame workshop in the backyard so I can enjoy my passion, working on anything wood canoe related. Although I do make paddles, snowshoes and toboggans as well.

My interest in canoes and the use thereof was fuelled as a child by my Dad, who with his 15' cedar canvas canoe purchased from Simpson Sears, would get us out on canoe trips every summer from our cottage near Kazabazua, Quebec. I helped him restore that canoe in the late 70's using the family car in the driveway to stretch the canvas attached to the garage door. Then in the early 80's I watched him build a cedar strip canoe which, unbeknown to me at the time, was given to my wife and I as a wedding present. I have since followed his lead by restoring cedar canvas canoes for each of my children upon their getting married. Now my grandkids like to look up in the rafters of my shop, where I store the canoes awaiting restoration, and pick out the one they want. In this way we pass down a love for these beautiful old wood canoes to the next generations.

I enjoy restoring, mostly cedar canvas canoes as a hobby, I don't sell them. They are passed on to family and friends who'll take care of them and enjoy their use. My pet peeve is seeing the ads for a piece of our heritage being offered cut in half and made into shelving. Some day my intent is to buy one of these so called "shelves" and replicate the other end and get it back on the water where it belongs. Anytime a canoe is restored and paddled again, it honours the original craftsman who built it.

This past Summer I restored a 60 year old birch bark canoe which hung in the dining hall of a camp in Vermont until the camp sold in the 1980's and then was stored in a barn until offered up for someone to restore. I drove down to Maryland to pick it up. For pictures and a more complete story on this canoe please see the thread in the WCHA forums: http://forums.wcha.org/index.php?threads/birch-bark-canoe-restoration.17123/

 

A current project of mine is to restore a 16' Lakefield canoe built by Rilco Industries which will be donated for auction with all proceeds going towards the restoration of the 100 year old cenotaph in Morewood, Ontario. My grandfather and his brother Burnis, who was killed in the battle for Vimy Ridge, are commemorated there. The canoe has been completed except for the final paint job which I'll do come warmer weather in the Spring. I'm planning on a two tone green and grey with a poppy to identify it with its purpose. It has new seats which I'll cane this Winter, contoured centre yoke, aft thwart, gunwales and decks all in ash.

The three canoes above are the Lakefield, already mentioned, in the middle, a 14' Chestnut Chum on left which I'm hoping to restore for myself and a 17' UFO with really nice lines that I'm restoring for my nephew who blames me for his love of wood canoes. I stripped the glass off it last Fall. In addition, I have a 15' Huron canoe and a 16' Old Town which also need restoration so I've enough to keep me busy for a few years yet. 

It's my pleasure to be a part of this chapter and I look forward to the day when I can meet many of you out on the water enjoying a paddle in one of these beautiful craft.

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