One of the goals of this project is to hear the voice of people
who have built and fished wooden boats on the North Coast. Sparrow Taranov, who
lives at the former site of Humpback Bay cannery, has many years' experience
fishing and repairing boats. She spoke with a number of people who have spent
their lives on the water. Portions of their conversations are included here. We
thank all those who gave their time so generously to share their stories.
Freddie Letts
Freddie Letts grew up in Oona River. He is a third generation
wooden boatbuilder. His grandfather Emile Rosang and his father Fred Letts were
both well-known shipwrights. He spoke with Sparrow Tranov on February 26,
2006
Wooden Boatbuilding in Oona River
Freddie: Building boats is interesting. It's a
challenge. Sometimes its trying when you bend the board and you just get it
steamed on and it goes bang, and you think, oh no, I've got to make another
one.
Sparrow: Didn't steam that quite enough!
Freddie: It's just the grain. Sometimes the
grain of the wood isn't quite right and it will just split open. If you have
good wood and everything's going good… Its harder to steam wood on cold
days like this, it's terrible. You should have a fairly warm day. By the time
you get the plank from the steam box down to where you're going to put it on,
it's already cooled again.
When we built the Oona Maid in '64 we started in January then I
was out fishing in June with it. It was just Dad and I working on it. There
were some long hours building it.
Sparrow: Have you been involved with many
boats?
Freddie: Dad built his boat in 1958. I was
still going to school. Then we built a boat called the Fearless which is
down in McLean's Shipyards now. It was built 1962 and '63. I helped put the
ribs in the Jan Michele at that time. It was built the same year, or
planked up to the water line the same year. 1966 we worked on the
Equinox. Spring of '71 we built the Diamentina. In '72 we built
the Edgewater ...we helped build it. There was a guy from Nova Scotia
came out and did all the planking on that boat. Then we built the El
Nino in 1974. That was 45 feet. Those two were East Coast hulls, East Coast
design.
We got married in 1970, and that fall and winter I was working
on the Laurel Point 3. We put a new wheelhouse on it. I was just reading
in the Westcoast Mariner that it sank off the west coast of Vancouver
Island. It was built in 1929, a 55 foot salmon packer. In the spring we started
the Diamentina, we built that... Yeah, a guy goes fishing in the summer
time, and then back working on boats in the winter time.
There were lots of boats being built. The Nalle was built
in Oona River in 1964, the same year as my boat. My uncle, Ole Rosang, built
it.
Sparrow: How many sheds were there in Oona?
Freddie: Five sheds. My uncle built the Genn
Isle around 1960. He built the Nalle. Ole Rosang, he's passed away
now. They originally lived on Lewis Island. That's where my Mom and her
brothers were from. They worked on boats over there, too. Their dad, Emile
Rosang, my grandfather, was a boatbuilder. He had a boatshed up in the slough
there. When you go up in there there's a bit of a slough up to the left. He had
a big boatshed up there; he used to work on boats there. He built the
Oldfield up there. It was a seiner.
Sparrow: So you come from a family of
boatbuilders.
Freddie: Yes, Dad worked on boats, my
grandparents did. The Lobo was built out there, in Oona, the Gurd
Island, was built in Ole's shed. And the Old Chum was built in 1950
or something; I wasn't very old at the time. That was built in Oona River too
by a guy by the name of Rasmus Tysse. He worked in the slough. His boatshed's
fallen down now.
I helped build the Snagglepuss for Paul Clark, that
little dory. We thought it would be so easy. 'Oh, I'm going to build a dory,
it's so easy to do.' Well, there are more angles and stuff on a dory than on an
ordinary boat! It's back home in Oona River now.
When John Group came out there, he had the sawmill in the '40s.
He must have built 60 or 70 boats. They were building gillnetters for the
canneries. He built the Shirlu, I'm not sure if that's still around; the
Ingrid Elaine, that's a troller. And the Oona R. which is now
called the Ocean Blue. Actually, that was built up in Axel's shed.
Sparrow: So I guess boatbuilding would have
been probably one of the main sources of employment in Oona River at that
time.
Freddie: Well, in the wintertime it was, for
sure.
Sparrow:You had the fishermen actually in Oona
River.
Freddie: Most people were fishing, then they'd
be building boats or repairing them. They did quite a lot of repairing boats.
But now, there hasn't been a boat built since whenever Joe McAllister's boat
was built. And that was steel. No wooden boats, but that was the last boat.
Red Cedar, Yellow Cedar
Freddie: My boat has got all yellow cedar ribs.
We put thicker planking in. Dad said, 'Oh, we may as well put inch and a half
planking rather than inch and a quarter.' Its more to work with, so we put inch
and a half planking. Most 36-foot boats have inch and quarter.
We got a natural crook for the bowstem on my boat, just a
natural crook. Then we put a scarf joint, put a forefoot... Rather than put
your bow in so it comes just about straight up, have a long little bit of a
slow curve to it. Your boat handles better in a following sea.
When we built my boat we went down and logged the yellow cedar
on McCauley, top end of McCauley Island. Hand logged the yellow cedar in the
winter time and got it all cut up in the mill, enough for my boat and Axel's.
We put yellow cedar ribs in, got our own yellow cedar, cut ribs, used yellow
cedar rather than oak. And they're still sound, they're still there.
Sparrow: Since you're putting a boat in dry and
you've caulked it and everything, do you have to leave allowance for it to
expand as it soaks up?
Freddie: Not usually. The only thing that can
happen if you have a red cedar deck and you caulk it too tight, like caulk it
too hard, then if it swells up it might pop the nail. It will push everything.
The wood does swell up once it gets in the water, or once your cedar deck gets
out in the rain. It does swell up.
Sparrow: What do you use for planking?
Freddie: Mostly red cedar. We never built any
boats with fir. We've always used red cedar and we always put yellow cedar
timbers, like horn timber and shaft log and stringers, that's all out of yellow
cedar. And the keel. Although on the Jan Michele when they built it they
used a creosote piling for a keel. On the Fearless they used a hemlock
keel and it's been there forty some odd years.
Sparrow: I've always been told that hemlock
rots too fast.
Freddie: I think if it's outwards wet, but in
buildings or somewhere where it's copper painted all the time. It's strange,
because sometimes on a wooden boat you can bore a hole in it after it's twenty
years old and the planking is still dry. The top of your wood boat actually
gets wetter than the bottom because the water doesn't seem to soak in. You can
cut old wooden railings off and the damn things sink. But on the bottom, take a
plank out and its still dry. Go figure out how that works! You'd think that
being in the bilge and having water on the outside all the time it would get
wet.
But wood has been around a long time. I think I actually like
wood the best of anything. I do have a fiberglass boat, but I'm not too sure
about that! You can see the sides moving, you can look out places, you can look
out when you're back in the lazerette... 'that's not very thick, is it?'
Sparrow: No, you can see the light through it!
They're so much colder.
Freddie: I find wood is a little more friendly,
or natural, warmer. Mostly the older style boats they had a foc's'l down below.
It was always warm because you were down almost sitting at water level so to
speak, because you were down in the foc's'l. You had lots of wood insulation,
it was really cozy. Fibreglass, in the bow of the boat, if you don't have a
heater in there, it's like an iceberg.
Sparrow: Even if you do have a heater, it
sweats. On the other hand, you don't have to put so much time and effort into
it now.
Freddie: At least on the bottom you don't have
to worry about the toredos, whereas a wooden boat you pretty much have to
copper paint them in the spring, then in the fall when you're done, if you're
using them for fishing. If you don't the sea lice and toredos start chewing
away, and pretty soon there's nothing left. They gobble up the bottom of your
boat.
No, we got lots of, quite a few repairs on boats. In the latter
years we've been taking a few up and putting aluminum rails and stuff on.
Taking the wooden rails off. I think that's not a bad way to go.
I don't know if they'll be building any more wooden boats.
Probably not. I don't know if we'll be building any more boats of any kind. I
would like to build another one. For something to do, get a project going,
before a guy forgets.
