As mentioned in Part 1 of Canadian Canoe Museum, there’s so much to see and learn here that one could spend most of a day here.

 

 

This sign says, in part,

Missionaries, beginning with the Jesuits in the 1600s, regularly used canoes to reach the remote parts of Canada… they cheerfully accepted the rigours of life on the trail.

 

 

A canoe that folds. Imagine that! I suppose it would help where there is limited storage space.

 

 

Here’s a closed-in canoe, somewhat like a kayak in appearance. See the wooden seat, like a lawn chair,  and the attached oar. Perhaps only for leisure and not a working canoe.

 

 

 

A canoe, with not one, but two sails. The sails would catch the wind and it looks like they could be moved to do just that.

 

A courting canoe, with cushy pillows for the pair, and music too. See the on-board Victrola?

 

 

A close-up of the music machine. I think the courting couple would want to go out on calm waters, otherwise the record player and cushions could get wet. Imagine the courting couple out on the water of a calm lake and they’re listening to their favourite music as they paddle.

 

 

In another canoe, a similar type of record player, without the amplifier. We had records like this in a black box gramophone.

 

Look at this sleek canoe with the cushioned seat. Pretty classy.

 

 

And the very last canoe we saw named for someone special– it’s a good name.

 

There we are at the end of the canoe museum.  I stopped at the gift shop to look around. I came home with two books, one to read to my granddaughters and one about storytelling. Love the children’s picture book story, One Dog Canoe, by Mary Casanova, illustrated by Ard Hoyt. I also discovered that one story in the book, Mugged by a Moose, ed.  Matt Jackson, was written by a Waterloo Region author, Leslie Bamford, whom I happen to know.