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Cedar Strip Canoe and The Water
Since I was little, it was my dream to build a cedar strip canoe. I know that there are more efficient designs than cedar strip canoes – they are heavier and less durable than kevlar, and even aluminum has advantages over a cedar strip canoe, but still, the beauty of the lines, the richness of the wood, make the whole thing so incredibly appealing in a way that a boat made of more modern materials simply can't be.
My dad purchased cedar strip canoe plans to build one with me when I was a child. In his younger days, he had been quite the avid outdoorsman, travelling up and down the rivers of the great north woods in his own cedar strip canoe, back when that was the standard of canoe construction, and he always intended to introduce me to the joys of the outdoors in a new cedar strip canoe that we would build ourselves. Unfortunately, he worked like the devil day and night. He was a workaholic, and spent upwards of 80 hours a week as a doctor, treating other peoples health problems while he ignored his own. We never even got to go on a camping trip of more than a couple of days when I was young, because he worked so much. When he died, I was not only sad to see him go, but sad to see that he had never gotten to achieve his dream of rowing once more in his own cedar strip canoe.
When I was 27, I met the woman of my dreams, and fell completely in love. We were in no hurry to marry, or to settle down and have children, but we loved spending as much time together as possible. She was, like me, really in to camping and other kinds of outdoor fun, and we decided that it would be fun to build a cedar strip canoe together. I came home one day with cedar strip canoe plans, and we got to work.
The whole thing took much longer than you'd think. It's hard work to build cedar strip canoes, and the first time you undertake a new project, it is almost impossible to not make some serious mistakes that you have to completely do over again. Nonetheless, soon we had our own finished cedar strip canoe and were able to begin taking trips into the great outdoors together.
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