Birch Bark Canoes

A few doors down from us on the river is this beautiful barn.  It houses the Hafeman Boat Works.  Bill Hafeman started making traditional birch bark canoes in 1921 and has passed the shop down to his granddaughter Christie and her husband, Ray Bossel, Jr.  If the doors are open when you pass by, that means Ray is working and you're welcome to stop in and chat.  And he's a wonderful story teller.  We stopped in over the summer and Ray showed us every step of the canoe making process.  Ron Shara has featured Ray on MN Bound a few times - here's a link to one of the episodes - definitely worth watching: MN Bound.  (The canoe segment is 17 minutes into the show).

Every canoe is made entirely from materials Ray harvests from the forest, river, and swamps.  He has, however, switched to one man-made product - the tar.  He used to use pine tar but it didn't hold through the seasonal temperature changes without special maintenance and most customers weren't up to the maintenance so...he has switched to a man-made tar.  This is really a beautiful art.  While showing us the various sizes of canoes, Ray told us about the little canoes he made for his kids.  When the canoes are that short, they tend to be very tippy, he said, so "you need to learn to keep your tongue in the center of your mouth."
Hanging on the wall of the shop are some beaver pelts.  Ray shared this information with us about felted tophats that were the style in Europe way back when:  The felted hats were made by mixing  the fuzz from under the long fur of a beaver with mercury.  Unfortunately, this close proximity to mercury caused mercury poisoning, which led to psychological problems = "mad hatter".  I don't know if this is true but I'm betting it is.  Here's Ray price list - seems incredibly reasonable for the uniqueness AND that they are completely, fully functional, lightweight canoes!