When I've done what I can, I plan to give copies of this document to some of those other members. Hopefully, they will (at least) correct what I've gotten wrong, perhaps add their own perspective on the same stories, or even better add new stories that I didn't remember or never knew. I should mention that, while Dad was in a nursing home, I wrote a similar Memoir of him, which necessarily intersects this narrative several times.
The scope of this story could be enormous, but I have been compelled to pick up the keyboard by our recent visit to our "family" cottage on Goose Bay, in the 1000 Islands region of the St. Lawrence river. First, since I moved around quite a bit as a child, I never really put down "roots". At age 21, when visiting a friend in Germany who showed me around the town she had lived in all her life, I wondered if there was a place I could "show" in as much detail. I realized that it would have to be the cottage. I had spent some portion of the summer there almost continously since I was about 7, despite all the moves. Second, many of our current neighbors in Goose Bay talk about being "old timers" there, having lived or visited for 10-20 years. My story starts another 60 years earlier...
I don't know when John first started fishing in the St. Lawrence River. My grandmother, Alma, used to complain that he would take the whole family there but that she, as eldest daughter, was expected to cook and clean (presumably using facilities that were worse than at home). Thus, she never formed a great opinion of the area (or of her father, for that matter). When a fellow music student offered to marry her and take her far away from home, she accepted without hesitation. My grandfather tried "bonding" with his soon-to-be father-in-law by taking a few trips to Goose Bay in 1932-34, but did not develop a love for the place either.
What I do know is that by the time I met him, John had been regularly coming to one cottage in Goose Bay for many years and had an established fishing routine. The winter of 1966/67, John wrote a letter to my Dad (Paul and Alma's son) asking if he would please come up to the St. Lawrence since "all his other fishing buddies were dead". Dad went to the St. Lawrence with Granddad in his youth almost every year. He described taking the old road around the southern shore of Lake Ontario and stopping -- I think in Henderson Harbor -- for ice cream and every person got a pint to eat in the car on the rest of the drive. (Presumably, John had a sweet tooth like many of us.)
The next summer Mom, Dad, and I packed up the Rambler and drove from Indiana to Spencerport to pick up Granddad (and stay the night) and then on to the cottage. I remember exploring the farm a bit in the morning and seeing a wood boat in the barn that really excited me. I think it was the idea of finding "treasure" hidden in an unexpected place. At some point the following day, we continued our trip up to Goose Bay, this time following major roads (81).
We initially stayed in the "spare" (front) bedroom in Granddad's cottage, across
the street from the River.
Jim and Granddad's Cottages
Granddad's Cottage Layout
Jim's Log Home
I think that I usually slept on the front porch (imperfectly screened from mosquitos)
while Mom and Dad slept in the spare bedroom.
The cottage must have had a water pump bringing in well water on the back porch
and a simple flush toilet. Any hot water came from heating the water in a
pot on the stove.
A typical fishing day was supposed to begin with an early (read dawn) start. I think this is the way Granddad had fished for 50 years. However, I recall waiting a lot for everything to be prepared. Mom (I guess) would prepare a picnic lunch (I think egg salad sandwiches and metal Thermos's of lemonade), Granddad would put gas in the outboard engine (with the gas tank on the back of the engine itself) but also manage to find several buddies whom he would need to chat with for 1/2 hour or so (each), and Dad probably walked up to the Store to get bait (minnows). Somehow, with all this to do (especially Granddad's "visiting"), it often was after 10:00 before we actually got out on the water.
The outboard powered a 16-foot open aluminum boat. My place was in the small seat by the bow. I loved leaning out over the tiny metal deck to splash my hands in the waves. Mom and Dad must have been in the middle seat(s?) with Granddad in the back piloting the boat using the outboard handle. In later years, I assumed responsibility for anchoring being in the bow, but I can't remember at what point I acquired this. I do know that the anchor Granddad (and the others at this fishing camp) was simply constructed by pouring concrete into a coffee can into which an eyebolt was set. It didn't matter that eventually the can itself rusted off. As of this writing, one of these anchors is still in our cottage. When we later bought our own boats, we used more modern fluke anchors.
Once on the water, we usually motored to one of Granddad's fishing holes and anchored. The St. Lawrence has both shallow shoals and deep (>100 feet) holes, both of which are congregation points for fish at various times of the year. Our set-ups consisted of 5-6 foot fiberglass poles with a open bait-casting reel with a lead sinker at the end and a hook-and-leader affixed about a foot up from the sinker. (Granddad made his own sinkers simply by cutting a 1/8" by 3" long strip from a lead sheet with tin snips and using an awl to poke a hole at one end. These tools are still in a tacklebox that Dad inherited from Jim and is in the cottage.) We attached one of the minnows on the hook (just through the lip), let the line down, and waited. We always caught Rock Bass or Yellow Perch, but were waiting for Smallmouth Black Bass. A few times we caught eels this way on hook-and-line. Granddad hated eels (and indeed there were Morays in the river that left obvious circular scars on some of the Bass we caught) and would gaff hook them and then slice their heads off with a knife before dumping both head and body back into the River. In later years, we weren't quite so violent, but never did keep an eel despite being told that they are good smoked.
After an hour or so (and a few keeper Bass -- greater than 10 inches), we moved on to another hole and repeated the process. At some point, we would eat our lunch and in the late afternoon return to the cottage with our dinner -- one Bass for me and two for the adults. Sometimes, afternoon storms would kick in, making the return trip an adventure. Granddad knew lots of "short cuts" that took us into quieter waters, but it was hard to avoid getting wet in an open boat with large waves.
Goose Bay is about 2 miles wide and a mile across and is attached to the main river channel by a few-hundred foot wide Gap, which is mostly filled with islands. On one side of the Gap (the "mainland") there is Kring Point State Park, where people have been trailer camping for as long as I have been visiting. Mom has the story that on one of these return trips through the Gap, kids from the Park were playing in the water. Granddad (whose eyesight was getting bad) seemed to be on a collision course with them, so Mom shouted "kids swimming!" at him and pointed. Seeing no reaction (Granddad also was getting hard of hearing, and the outboard was loud), she shouted again. After a third repetion, Granddad veered away at the last second and muttered "You call that swimmming?".
Granddad and Dad would clean the fish outside on newspapers
placed on a rock out the back door of Granddads cottage.
Fish Cleaning Rock
They cut off the dorsal fin, cut open the belly, removed the guts, cut off the head,
removed the skin, and cut off the tails. Mom would cook them by coating them with
flour (by shaking both inside a bag) and frying in butter in a cast iron skillet
over a gas stove. Some vegetables and fresh-juiced lemonade rounded out the meal.
We quickly learned how to remove the meat from one side of the fish, peel off the
skeleton intact, and attack the other side.
Evenings were generally quiet. We stayed indoors to avoid the mosquitoes and sometimes played cards, read, or listened to the radio. (There wasn't a TV in Granddads cottage.) I don't remember these too well, perhaps because a day of being out in the sun has always wiped me out and found me going to bed soon after dinner.
After a few years, Granddad died. We went to his funeral. I remember looking in the barn for the wood boat, but I think it was gone. By that time, we had purchased an aluminum boat (12 foot) and outboard motor (Evinrude 6HP) of our own, which is now at the cottage. By then, the pattern had been set -- we continued going back to Goose Bay each summer for many years.
When Granddad died, Jim and Carolyn purchased his cabin from his estate and made it their primary summer residence. Jim was an avid fisherman who knew Granddad's "holes". The Patterson's would go out on their inboard/outboard cruiser in the morning, anchor beside one of the holes, and catch their limit of bass by midday. They didn't particularly like to eat fish, but found that friends and coworkers back home appreciated gifts of bass. Thus, they added a freezer to the cottage. They also added a TV. We would often spend an evening there playing cards with the TV going. Both Jim and Carolyn smoked and drank a lot of beer.
They kept ownership of the cottage next door, so we started using it when we visited the following summers. After we bought our own cottage (see below), their old cottage was not maintained. After many years, they decided to demolish both structures and build a large log home. Jim's intent was to make this available as a family resource (he invited Nancy and me to stay there), but Carolyn soon died (I believe of skin cancer, in part due to her time out on the boat). Jim soon started having mental problems himself and died a few years later. While going through his estate, it was determined that he had spent most of his money on a stamp collection that was not worth much. Thus the estate decided to sell the Goose Bay log home. I only was in it once, when Nancy and I asked the then-current owners for a tour. I haven't kept up with Brad (he was a golf pro in Florida), though I did see him once after Jim's funeral. He has been described by others in the family as just caring about getting money from his parent's estate, though I don't know of this personally.
In the early 1970's(?) (perhaps upon Dick's death) the property was taken over by another couple -- Gus and Mary -- who turned the store into a bar and eliminated most of the rest of the business. (Though I think they kept the gas pump.) They had a big weekend business of people boating in for a drink. I hated this. The jukebox music carried over the Bay at night, they installed an arc light on the dock which made night star viewing awful, and when the bar closed late at night, loud, drunk voices carried over the water followed by the roar of outboards zooming into the night.
Gus left Mary and after about 10 years, she too gave up this business. The property is now a private residence, there are now longer docks in the Bay, the phone is gone, and, in the winter of 2002/3, the rotting remains of the duck blind on Schoff's rock was carried away by ice. However, more neighbors have adopted the use of arc lights.
Lew had run the camp from a waterfront cottage. This structure had been a farmhouse up the hill from Goose Bay and was moved intact to its present location. The cottage had an L-shaped dock, resting on several rock-filled wood cribs, with a light and birdhouse at the corner of the "L", that was the main dock for the camp. By the time I came, Lew had built another house next door that he had winterized for his residence. A few years after Granddad's death, Lew put the original cottage up for sale as well. Mom and Dad (who had always preferred the idea of waterfront property) bought it.
Lew died or moved on shortly after and his new house was purchased by John Short and family. John was a rather shady character with whom we had several less-than- satisfactory business dealings (more later). Among other things, we learned after the Moran's purchased the house from the Shorts, that Lew had wired the electricity for the two houses together (since they were both his) and that some of the power that the Shorts had used was through the circuit coming from our cottage! John enlarged the house significantly.
The Morans also moved on and in the 1980's the Pankos moved in. During their 20 years, they have further extended the house, added aluminum siding, built a dock longer than Schoff's original, and paved the driveway. They've also added an arc-light. We can't complain too much -- the Pankos have helped our family in many ways over the years since they are there year-round, whereas we have, at best, only been able to spend a few weeks there in the summers.
Leistra's side dock now
Dick was a rather gruff character, who scared me as a pre-teen, so I
mostly avoided them for years. After his death in the mid 1970s
however, I learned that Bernie was very generous. We were always
in need of some tool or piece of equipment, and Bernie was always
happy to help. During my first visit with Nancy, I managed to strand
myself on our porch roof (after putting panels up over the upstairs
bedroom windows by first crawling out through them). Bernie saw me,
came to get Nancy, and both of them came running over with one of
Bernie's extension ladders. Bernie also had that most valuable of
possessions -- a phone -- that Nancy used for an (unsuccessful) phone
interview for a postal supervisor position. Bernie also was
invaluable in watching over our place and mowing our lawn through the
years. I was quite sad to learn of her death in the mid 1990s.
The couple that purchased Bernie's place, Tom and Betty(?), I believe are related to the Gardener(?) family next door on the other side. They've greatly expanded the dock and added a large deck with a gazebo (of course with a high intensity light). I've only seen them during my last 2 visits, and don't really know them. I have had to witness their parties every weekend, the last time with Elvis music blasting through the night -- clearly not people I especially value as neighbors.
I don't recall why, but at least one summer, we rented a cottage for a week from Parker's cottages, on the other side of the public dock.
After a few years, about 1970, we bought Lew's original cottage. I can't recall much of this process. Mom and Dad always valued waterfront property to listen to waves and look out over the water. (When I left home, Mom quickly bought a house on the Susquehana River, where she still lives.) I have a vague memory of looking at one other property on the other side of the Bay, but I don't think we were actively searching for a property, and I think the decision to buy Lew's place was made pretty quickly. It put us in debt (we were renting our house) for the first time, (about $8,000?). It was a joyous occasion when, about 5 years later, Mom and Dad paid off this loan. That summer, we had a ceremony in which they burned the paper which I think was the loan agreement on the stump of a tree in front of the cottage by the water.
Suddenly, we were homeowners, with a bunch of responsibilities. (We were still renting our home in Pennsylvania.) Tasks that we worked on pretty quickly were replacing the pump and water line bringing water to the cottage, installing a new toilet, and painting the cottage exterior. We probably replaced the main roof reasonably soon as well, since I remember it having moss growing between diamond-shaped shingles.
We decided that a "Destroylet" would be best for the environment, since we didn't have enough property to install a septic tank and leach field. This used propane to burn the liquid and solid "charges" and only required that we vacuum up some ash at the end of the week. It actually was kind of nice to be the second person to use it on a cold morning, as your bottom would get nicely warmed! Nevertheless, our neighbors the Shorts, who lived in the top floor of their house, about at the elevation of our roof line, frequently complained about its strange smell, and we had to replace the transformer at least every other year -- presumably due to water damage over the winter. In the 1980s, we could no longer get parts to fix it, so the Destroylet was replaced by a conventional toilet flushing into a holding tank.
Hand pump topping our well
Corner sink
Shower
"Bayside Diner"
Front bedroom
Back bedroom
Painting the cottage was a task I learned to hate. Imagine spending your summer
vacation looking up under the eaves of a hot roof and chipping paint with a hand
scraper over complex wood moldings with the chips going into your eyes. So much
time was spent in this awful "prep work", that I couldn't enjoy the process of
covering it all up with the final coat. To make life a bit easier, we chose to
use the same color for trim. We chose green as a natural color to make the
cottage hide a bit. I think we did this whole process twice in 10 years. In
the mid 1980s, Dad and Kathy had to repaint it again, this time a more traditional
light yellow, with dark red trim. During our last 2 visits, it has been obvious
that most of the place is desperately in need of being repainted yet again!
Another task we hated to do was cutting down trees. As I already mentioned, there was one tree by the front (River side) door and at least one more near the side porch when we bought the cottage. Unfortunately, both were Elms that soon succumbed to Dutch Elm Disease, which within 20 years destroyed almost all U.S. Elm trees -- certainly in the East Coast through MidWest. This also made our cottage more conspicuous, though the trees proabably were too close to the structure anyway.
We got into a pattern of spending 3-4 weeks at the cottage each year. The first week we "opened" the cottage. We would get the water running by priming the pump, put our boat in the water (more on boats later on), and level the cottage. Winters in the St. Lawrence are harsh, and the freeze/thaw cycle often moved the underground concrete blocks that served as the cottage's foundation. The first visit of the year, doors wouldn't work right, so we would adjust the height of the "piers" consisting of "cinder blocks" and lumber until the cottage was level again. We just used a small hydraulic jack to lift the cottage off of each of the piers, shifted the number of lumber pieces, set the cottage back down on the pier and moved to the next. In the mid 1990s, Dad and Kathy had an actual foundation laid under the cottage which eliminated the need for this whole process (and gave lots of nice storage space as well).
Each visit we would turn the propane tank on, replace the Homosote panels with screens, and go to the Spring to refill our drinking water bottles. About 2 miles out of Alexandria Bay, there is a natural spring that is channeled through a pipe at the side of the road. We simply stop the car, open the jugs, put them under the pipe until full, cap the jugs, put them back in the car, and drive off. In some years, the owners would have a donation box to help keep the spring repaired. The spring still flows well, however in the winter of 2010 its water was rerouted to a shed where a machine dispenses water into user-supplied jugs for $0.35/galloon.
The Homosote panels were a big project early on. The cottage's porch is one of its best features. All of Lew's cottages had them with screened frames for windows and canvas curtains supported top and bottom by rings around 1/2" steel pipes. The curtains weren't very effective at keeping out weather -- especially during the winter -- so we ended up building frames with solid panels (made of a recycled compressed paper material called Homosote) that could replace the screens. Each panel, about 4' by 4' was held in by 4 hook-and-eyes and were readily replaced (though often requiring a few taps of the hammer).
Our trips there quickly became an established pattern. Dad and I would leave Chambersburg in our VW camper (Woton) with our 3 cats -- Jewels, Irving, and Myipper -- about 4pm, in time to pick Mom up from work in Harrisburg at 5. We would drive up Interstate 81, stopping at one of the fast-food places (later Burger King, since they made "Polish" (vegetarian!) burgers for Mom) in Scranton (old exit 57E -- now 191A) and getting gas. We would continue on, playing 20 questions, Dad sometimes listening to ballgames on the (AM) radio, and J.P. sitting on the back of Dad's seat and yowling every minute or two. Irving would curl up on Mom's lap, I would sit on the "jump seat" in back, but between, Mom and Dad. I think Myp hung out on the dash.
About 11:30, we would stop in at the Dunkin Donuts in Watertown (exit 45) and select a box of a dozen. (I think this location still exists.) We would eat 1 or 2 there and have the rest for breakfast the next morning. We continued the drive, arriving about midnight. While Mom and Dad started shuttling bags and cats into the cottage, I would run to the end of the dock and lay down. (Even then, there was some ambient light, so I used the boats tied up at the dock for a shield.) I loved to look up at the stars and hear the quiet of the night, only interrupted by small waves hitting the dock's piers. Twice, I saw light directly to the North, where I knew there weren't towns and the sky was clear. This was my first encounter with the Aurora Borealis, which fortunately has continued. All too soon, the bugs would find me, so I would head back in to the world of artificial light, before we turned them off to go to sleep.
Our style of fishing evolved to be different from Jim's. We would try to fish early in the season when the bass were still in relatively shallow water. (They like somewhat cold water.) Dad found a number of rocky coastlines that we would boat to and cast (spin-cast either live bait or lures) to shore. Many times, we didn't anchor and slowly drifted to try different spots. I would sit across the bow with my legs dangling and a paddle ready if the boat drifted into a bad spot. We didn't catch as much as Jim, but almost always came back with enough for dinner. I think we also got to see more of the River. Later in the season, we'd hunt for shoals in the middle of the channel, but we couldn't use spinner-bait and would have to anchor.
In 1972(?), A hurricane (Agnes was later) went through the Northeast U.S. We had some problems in Pennsylvania, but the River also rose. Our family took an impromptu trip to the cottage to see what had to be done. Water was above the level of our seawall and the crib dock was completely under water. We temporarily made the dock serviceable by putting planks on top of cinder blocks sitting on the old dock surface. We augmented the seawall with sandbags. The Town (of Alexandria Bay?) dumped a pile of sand and a load of burlap bags at our driveway for this purpose. I remember a long afternoon with lots of neighbors working like a chain gang, with one person opening the bags, another shoving sand into them, the first tying them shut and putting them in a wheelbarrow, a third and fourth person taking the wheelbarrows along planks to the seawall where a fifth and sixth would place them on top of the stones that already were there. I think we raised the seawall height by about 2 feet with 4-5 courses of sandbags around the U-shaped seawall about 150 feet long. To this day, it remains my best example of what can be done if people work cooperatively.
After the water receded, it was obvious that some major changes needed to be done. The old L-shaped dock was completely scrapped, except for the dock light and bird house at the end and replaced by a new straight dock supported by 10" by 50 foot long logs driven into the mud. Rocks from the old cribs were recovered by hand and used to build up a new seawall, with cement holding the rocks together and PVC drain pipes spaced every 30 feet or so. Dirt was brought in to backfill to the new seawall level. We had our neighbor, John Short (who was a contractor) be the contractor for all this work, which seemed to make sense because some of the seawall was his property as well. However there were several questionable charges -- including a large sum to build a giant pliers out of two 2x6s to pull rocks out of the crib, that soured our relation with him and with Larry - across the street with whom John subcontracted some of the work.
Crib dock (solid, with hashed cribs) and pile dock
(dashed)
Pile Dock
Floating Dock
Dad and I reinstalled the dock light and bird house on the end of the new dock,
with me going into the water to staple the Romex wire under the dock to feed
power to the light. This dock worked for many years, but required the same
annual leveling as the cottage as the pilings were pushed up by the winter ice.
For the dock, we sometimes had to cut the top off the piling and redrill a hole
for the threaded rod that connected the piling to the dock cross-beam. By the
1990s, some of the pilings had worked their way up so much that they were quite
crooked (I always wondered if John really had put 50-foot-long pilings in).
Dad and Kathy decided to rebuild the dock yet again, this time as a floating
dock. The floating dock has worked well, though I am a bit curious -- we had
rejected the idea of a floating dock originally because we had been told that
they needed to be pulled back onshore every year. As far as I know, Dad and
Kathy never worried about this.
I should mention that the dock birdhouse was occupied by one family of Purple Martins. These were greatly valued since they ate mosquitos. To encourage more Martins, I got plans for a Martin house from the Chambersburg Agriculture Extension Service and built a 16-unit dwelling. We installed it on the shore near the end of the dock where it served for many years. Eventually, we stopped maintaining it (cleaning it out each year) and it disintegrated. (It was just made of painted plywood.) We removed it in the 1980s, but the pole still remains.
Post that held my martin house
About the time that we moved to Greenvillage, Mom decided to become a vegetarian.
(She still is.) She still went out on the boat with us to be out on the water,
but no longer fished. She also still cooked the fish (and other meat when we
were home) for Dad and me.
1974 had lots of changes, with Dad not getting tenure in Chambersburg, getting a position in Lancaster, but us buying a house in Harrisburg Instead, where Mom had been working (and continued to work through retirement). We moved in early that summer, but something was up between Mom and Dad. On one of our trips back from the cottage that summer, they announced that they had decided not to live together, that Dad would move to Lancaster, and I would have to choose whom I wanted to live with. I was speechless for the entire one-hour stretch from Watertown to Syracuse, trying to think of what to say and ask. Eventually I decided to stay with Mom, but later lived with Dad for a year while I attended the college he was teaching at.
Dad and I took a few trips there in 1975 and 1976. Once, we even went in the winter to ice fish from Krings Point. Then, I was in college and decided to take courses in the summers of both 1977 and 1978, though I managed to get in a trip or two to the cottage each year. In particular, another professor at F&M, Robert Russell (who was blind) - had written a book "The Island" (Vanguard, 1973 -- ISBN 0814907210) about his place in the 1000 Islands, so we made a couple of visits there by boat. Early in the summer of 1979, Mom and I packed my stuff in her Honda Accord and we drove across the country to Seattle so that I could work the summer in the small company my grandfather Paul had "retired" to and enter graduate school in the Fall.
Living in the West (Washington, California, and now Colorado), I have managed only a few visits "back" to Goose Bay. I would guess 2-3 in the next 8 years. In 1986, I fell in love and started on a binge of trips with my bride-to-be, Nancy, to show her the significant places in my life. In the fall, we got to spend several days alone at the cottage, which was great, but I began to think of myself as a tourist. A few years earlier, Dad had married Kathy and now had a different partner with whom to work on the place. Also, most of the people I had known there were gone (except for Bernie, and even she died a few years later).
In 2003 Dad died at age 63 from brain cancer. (See Dad's Memoir.) The cottage became Kathy's and she has continued to visit and keep it maintained. However, she enjoys different aspects of Goose Bay. Instead of fishing, she likes to hike in the area and tour nearby towns -- something she and Dad enjoyed. She and Dad bought a canoe that is now kept at the cottage and now brings a kayak that she can take out if no one else is there. She doesn't use the motorboats at all and, during our recent visit, didn't think it worth the bother (and expense) to get the Cobia out of storage from Schermerhorns'.
Thus, I now feel quite out of place in Goose Bay. I feel like I'm living half in the past, with memories that are no longer relevant. Much of the cottage hasn't changed since we bought it. The interior furniture, paint, dishes and even blankets are all the same. At this point in my life, they scream to be updated. The Homosote panels are hopelessly warped, so they are kept in place, making the porch a dismal place with peeling paint rather than a relaxing location to enjoy the River. However, the property isn't mine to manage and Kathy has different ideas about what needs to be done. I can have a friendly chat with neighbors, but they now are the residents and I am the one just visiting.
Also, Goose Bay is not the same. In addition to the changes at the spring and arc-lights mentioned above, I also noticed a conspicuous lack of Seaway shipping traffic during our last visit -- there was less than one ship a day. When I mentioned that the rate used to be closer to one an hour, people thought I was crazy. I have no idea why Seaway traffic would be down so much.
12' Aluminum boat with 6 HP outboardWe bought this in Indiana and trailered it around for quite a while, but eventually left it at the cottage. We glued indoor-outdoor carpet on the seats after a few trips when the metal seats became unbearably hot. It was the first boat I soloed in.
Boat similar to our Crestliner -- ours had
a canvas cover
Our second boat was a 16' Crestliner decked runabout with a 60Hp Evinrude outboard. We purchased it in Maryland from someone who used it in Chesapeake Bay. We found that it took waves pretty hard and looked for a replacement after a few years.
17' Cobia with 100 HP outboard
This was our third boat that we bought from Schermerhorn's. It was a bit expensive for us (even with the Crestliner trade-in), but after one ride in Chippawa Bay we were convinced by the smooth way the deep V hull took the waves. Also, the deck plan was perfect for our style of use, enabling fishing from any spot, but still a cover to get out of the sun and even pull-down seats to nap on. We soon had to replace the canvas top, which was an added expense, though even 10 years ago it was in need of replacement again.
We got a lot of use out of this boat, though we lost several props and/or shear pins to shoals in the river. The motor itself also required attention more than we wanted. Due to problems with the cover, we sometimes got enough water inside to destroy the electrical system between visits. One time, it actually sank at the dock. After that, we haven't completely trusted the integrity of the wood-reinforced fiberglass hull, though in our next-to-last visit it ran okay. If I were to use it now, I'd want to replace the motor with a new 4-stroke to avoid the oil pollution problem.
Generic photo of a Jetwind
For a short period, we also had a Sears Jetwind open-cockpit sailboat that we cartopped to the cottage.
16' Old Town canoe
The canoe that Dad and Kathy bought for exploring Goose Bay. It is also now kept at the cottage. They did cartop it around the area for occasional side trips.
Now Kathy has a beautiful yellow sea kayak that she uses by herself (in the background of the above picture.)