Woles

An now expired Ebay ad featured  a circa 1890 albumen stereoview image. Captioned  as "...Five canoes Starting from Island Portage", it shows a group of men with their bark canoes loaded with gear. Publisher T.W. Ingersoll was located in St. Paul, Minnesota but there is no additional information on the specific location of the shot. There must be thousands of Island Portages out there.



Unfortunately, no clear views of the paddles being used are visible (unlike a similar scene from an 1895 Canadian Geological survey photo - post here). But a guide in the foreground is tumping a large pack cloth roll along with sacs of supplies thrown on for good measure...

Came across this interesting pic on Flickr of U.S. President Calvin Coolidge being guided in his all-wood, board and batten style canoe. The caption is from the Flickr page.

President Calvin Coolidge fishing at Cedar Island Lodge, rustic lodge of Henry C. Pierce, 35 miles from Superior, Wisconsin, on the Brule River. This lodge was later dubbed The Summer White House. The canoe is named Beaver Dick and the guide is John LaRock.

The juvenile in me couldn't help but chuckle at the Commander-in-Chief's chosen name for his personal watercraft

An Ebay seller claims to have a silver gelatin original photograph dated to 1887 which features a couple in an elegant canoe. To my eyes it looks to be a very old birchbark canoe since some pitched gores are just visible in the grainy zoomed picture.





The gentleman in the rear looks to be using a graceful paddle with an elongated grip...



Another photo dated to same time and place is a group shot of paddlers. The seller describes it as "Visiting Neighbors by canoe, Riverside, MA c.1887"



The closeup shot reveals some lovely elegant paddles as well as fancy paddling clothes for the ladies...




If I'm not mistaken, Riverside Massachusetts is near the famed Charles River, where a thriving canoe building industry once existed. Archive.org has a nice little booklet entitled online entitled  Souvenir of the Charles River (1904). While published much later than this purported photo, it shows just how popular recreational canoeing was at the turn of the 20th century. Lots of great vintage photos and ads of early canoe builders as well.

When I first came across this photo on the Wooden Canoe forums, no one could identify who the people were (although there was agreement on the canoe builder). Later in 2011 I had come across an Ebay ad with this same photo claiming the individuals were actors Joel McCrea & Maureen O'Sullivan so added this bit of info to the post. At the time there was no source to the movie still.

While searching for more canoe related movie pics, I recently stumbled on the same image on Emovieposter.com and discovered some more details as well as a noted correction.

Turns out the photo is a still from the 1934 film The Richest Girl in the World and the actress in canoe is not Maureen O'Sullivan (the original Jane in the Tarzan films) but rather Fay Wray, the female lead in the original King Kong movie (1933). Being Canadian born might explain why she looks very comfortable lounging around in a canoe.

The wikipedia post for the film also includes a colourized film poster that features a mirrored image of this still in the bottom corner.



Now that I knew who the folks were in the canoe, I did some more digging and found another photo still of the scene, although I much prefer the first photo