1865 St. Francis Canoe Build

The 1865 St. Francis 2-Fathom Canoe appears as Figure 80 in The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America, but until now I haven’t seen any replicas or semi-replicas built. Recently, Evan B. built a cedar strip canoe replica of the 1865 canoe. It turned out great and it’s fun to see these lines become a real canoe.

Evan is sharing these, because he couldn’t find any photos online of this canoe. I couldn’t either back when I drafted the free canoe plans. You can see my drawing below.

“The canoe handled great and was quite fast on the water,” Evan wrote. “The building process was a bit tricky when fiberglassing the inside of the bow and stern, but other than that, it wasn’t too bad. I wasn’t able to get any pictures of the canoe weighed down. It was solo my first trip.”