Muskoka Antiques; Muskoka Wooden Boats and The Guy Who Used To Refinish Them

Portrait of Norman Stripp As Sketched by George Marquis of Sharon, Ohio

Invoices for Boat Hardware and Engine Parts from Pal Engines, Orillia and Duke Boats of Port Carling

BEING EARNEST ABOUT NORMAN - AND FRANK ABOUT WHAT HE DID TO THE WOODEN BOATS OF MUSKOKA!

FROM BOAT RESTORATIONS TO REPAIRING VINTAGE GUITARS - WOOD IS WOOD AFTERAL


     Even with the large amount of snow, Arctic quality roads, the snapping cold, this morning in the daylight.....what a nice picture it was; birds chirping, squirrels springing from the maple boughs, and a neighbor's chainsaw augmenting the sound of the snow blower, and then there was the snowmobiles and helicopter. What looks like the hinterland, doesn't always mean the place of solitude.
     First of all, a rather unkind lady, who by the way, wouldn't like me if I was gold-plated or made of chocolate, through a bit of networking we've been doing recently, didn't like my "all caps," writing format. Well, she's not the only one, and as I set a magic number of objections, at five, now out of 180,000, seeing as I was nearly halfway to that ceiling (being two in the past two years), I decided to whip myself into shape. To show that I'm in touch with my readership, and bend to their wants and needs, I've decided to go back to the normal ups and downs of accepted Canadian print style. As I wrote about, some time after the first strenuous objection, the use of the "all caps" was my intimate act of protest against society's protocols, that I didn't unleash back in the 1960's, when I was one of those freaky long-hairs, who may or may not have been at Woodstock. Honestly, I don't remember. Or who she was! Just that I was the free-love kind of hippy, who didn't get into the protest-of-everything format, as did my hippy contemporaries. I was very much, according to my girlfriends of the time, a "lower case" kind of guy. A lover not a fighter.....until I strapped my goalie pads on, which was the point I became that goaltender from the movie "Slapshot," and with "my" stick cracking on the back of their heads, kept my crease uncluttered of opposition forwards. Ah, the many contradictions of a modern day blogger. I used the "caps" standard, because it was time efficient, and I've been running out of it since I was born. I've got a lot of living and loving to jam into these next few years, so I'm trying to be as efficient as possible, without ever acting my age. Gosh, I'm a young fifty-eight, and a local Chinese restaurant keeps giving me the seniors discount. I'm cheaper than my pride is strong. I suppose upper case gives me that mojo feeling, that I might every now and again, get up out of this comfortable chair, and take over the world for a few moments. With a wonky hip it will take me a few minutes longer, to straighten up and move forward. Usually I'll take a couple of steps back, in order to make going forward all that more satisfying.In summary, I've decided that my period of non-conformity was successful, in that, for those many months, I felt empowered to carry that philosophical placard, protesting something or other depending on the weather. My joints react even when it's just overcast, these days. I sort of feel like the black knight, in the Monty Python movie, "In Search of the Holy Grail." I may just be a talking head, at the end, but by golly, I will have the satisfaction, that I was once....on a clear sunny day, of my youth, a fellow who could kick some ass. And receive the same without crying. Maybe just a little.

My father in-law; the legend of wooden boats - and my son, the guitar restorer

     You hear stuff, hanging around our boys' studio, that either makes you mad, or gives you a little chuckle. In the retail trade, you have to get used to the occasional angry, out-of-sorts customer, who makes it a point, to critique the shop and personnel; the lighting, the aroma of the building, and the fact there was no red carpet rolled out upon their entry. For every snotty bugger who makes our day a little less cheerful, there are a hundred to do the opposite. There are a few occasions, when an aggressive father....that would be me, gets it in his foggy old head, that he should intervene, and provide some clarification to the assertions being wielded by some grumpy customer, who isn't sure if we have the expert staff to handle re-stringing of a guitar. If you're a parent, you know what I mean. It seems imperative to defend the family honor. If you're a retailer, you've met these customers, and have secretly entertained the idea of begging them to leave your store, before the inner beast emerges from behind the counter. Here's what we get frequently:
     "Can you handle this repair; you look pretty young?" "Have you ever even seen a Martin guitar, let alone try to repair one?" "What are your qualifications?" "This is a precious guitar, and I will sue you if there's any damage when I get it back!" "Show me some of the other repair work you've done in the past?" "Can I watch you make the repairs?" "How old are you?" "Are you a properly trained luthier?" Then there are those who feel they need to give their directions very slowly, so you can comprehend the request. "My guitar is broken...I don't know if it can be saved....there's a broken string." "Do you do repairs here?" (While Andrew is working on one right in front of them.) "Can I trust you with this?" What they don't know, is that Andrew has held, played, and repaired, as he calls them, "the cream of the crop," of valuable guitars. Never once has their been a complaint, or law suit as a result.
     The best one, and what we have no choice, but to react to, is when these customers make reference to "us" not having "Muskoka roots," and therefore not a real local home-grown business. In Muskoka this is really important; and if you live here, and don't have pioneer roots in the district, you'll know exactly what I mean. You're a new arrival if your family tree doesn't reach as far back as the late 1800's. That's when we unleash the hounds. "You're not from around here, are you son? You must be from Toronto, or Southern Ontario, because this is the kind of shop they have down there in the banana belt." Suzanne's neck gets red at the collar bone, and I step away from the counter, before the glow gets to just below her chin. I call it the steaming kettle point of no return. That's also when Andrew's leg starts twitching, and he starts clearing his throat. "I'll have you know, sir, (or Miss), that my great, great, great grandfather, used to paddle a dug-out canoe from Three Mile Lake (Ufford, in the Township of Muskoka Lakes), to the only post office, in Muskoka Falls (near Bracebridge), in 1862, just to pick up his newspaper (Montreal paper), that was delivered to this office by a courier who just walked all the way from Orillia." Well, maybe there are a few words missing, in order to keep it brief, but it comes out with the same message. "Yes, we are Muskokans, through and through, if that makes you feel more comfortable?"
     As for Andrew's capabilities to repair guitars, well, he does very much appreciate, how important it is to perform to the highest level, and maintain the integrity of the instrument, just as it was handed to him. Of course, he has given the repaired guitars back to the owners, so it's a little difficult to stage a "show and tell," on command. To this point, ten years in business, complaints have been few and far between. It doesn't mean to suggest, he hasn't had to re-visit some of those repairs, and re-glue a bridge or crack that has, over time, once again become an annoyance. He doesn't charge for anything he's had to perform, as a second-time repair. He hates when this happens, but it does. In ten years he's worked on some incredible relics of guitar history, and for some very prominent customers. He's got lots of work, and every week, has to perform many "while you wait," adjustments, and set-up, cleaning, including re-stringing for customers and our music students.
     So when there is that rare occasion, that someone insists on seeing his full biography, and any accompanying film documentary, in support of his work, Andrew, depending on this mood, might offer, as a sort of business anecdote, that he comes from a long line of woodworkers, and leave it at that! I have never once heard him spout off about his ancestors, although he could provide some pretty impressive references. Like the fact his grandfather was one of Muskoka's well known wooden boat restorers, and that included work to those legendary boats with crests from builders like, "Ditchburn," "Minett-Shields," "Duke," "Sea Bird," and "Greavette." While it doesn't mean, by itself, that Andrew is qualified thusly, to repair vintage guitars, it does very much suggest, he should be given a little credit from the get-go. And there are a few other customers, who, when they find out his grandfather was Norman Stripp, of Windermere, can't believe their good fortune.....and start talking about where they had first met Norman, and the boats he had worked on for them. Ah, the irony. Someone who knew Norm, the boat restorer, handing over a guitar, to grandson, Andrew, the guitar restorer. So forgive me, for this muted ambition, to set the record straight, when some snarly customer, assumes our boys to be a little green, and untested, in their field of expertise. Norman probably had to deal with the same attitude, when a vintage row boat owner, would for example, show up and enquire whether he was up to handling such an enormous job. And then seeing that over-hanging the shop doors of the garage, was the bow from one of the largest Ditchburn launches ever built.....the one he owned named the "Shirl-Evon." "Who owns that boat," the customer asks of the good Mr. Stripp, cleaning his paint brushes while chatting about qualifications. "It's mine," he'd say, with that little smirk he used to direct at me, when I had just bothered him with one of my stupid inquiries.
     Andrew had a rare and wonderful opportunity, to be in that shop, to see some of the repairs and refinishing in progress. He got a lot further with Norman than I ever did. I was the "on the outside, looking in," son-in-law. I could look through the windows of the shop to see the boats, he had just got in, at the time. Norman would take Andrew inside, to get a closer look, at the skeletons of these magnificent mahogany watercraft, many made right here in Muskoka. Although Andrew thought he'd like to try and follow in his grandfather's footsteps, he didn't have a proper garage facility at home, in those early years, to work on what vessels we were dragging home. He did a great restoration on Suzanne's own white-water canoe, and worked on several other watercraft, including a small Danish sail boat, and a canvas canoe. In an around this period, he got turned-on to guitar repairs quite by happenstance. He started as a guitar player, and after we picked up a few antiquated instruments at local auctions, he began fixing them up, based on some of the same woodworking techniques Norman employed on his vintage boats. There was a lot of trial and error, and admittedly, at times, it was a succession of errors, especially finding the best glues for specific tasks. In the early going, Norman could answer some of these questions. The sad part of the relationship with his grandfather, came when, after his passing, we had to settle the family estate. Which of course meant clearing out the same shed Norman had worked-in for so many decades. Andrew claimed some of his grandfather's tools, to help him with his guitar repairs.....especially some of his clamps, and personally designed tools for getting into tight spots, with tiny and sharp heads. Somewhere, he still has his old shop-shirt, that he donned when working on the old boats. Andrew was very fond of his grandfather, and had a great deal of respect for the work he completed, on some of the finest watercraft, still cruising the waters of the Muskoka Lakes. While respect is one thing, Andrew has never mistaken a guitar job for a boat needing a new keel. There are a lot of parallels, and today, if Norman had lived to see his grandson's workshop, I think he would be quite impressed that the family apple, as they say, hadn't fallen far from the tree.
     I once maid the mistake, with the father of a former girlfriend, of brazenly pointing out a single, ugly brush hair, that he'd left, while refinishing a dining room table. The guy, so proud of his workmanship, went ape-poop on me, sure that I was mistaken....seeing a dark grain in the oak top instead, versus a paintbrush hair. I thought he was going to cry, and yes, he did want to shoot the messenger. My girlfriend gave me crap for a half hour, about fostering ill-will in the family. "But it was just a brush hair," I said, in my defense. The poor guy had to sand down that top, after digging out the hair, and re-varnish....all the while, looking with a magnifying glass, to make sure another hair wasn't part of the resurfacing. So not having learned my lesson, I did the same thing with Norman, pointing out on bow decking, of another boat he had just finished, how it was too bad there was a brush hair varnished-over on the surface. He got this wild look, and demanded I point it out to him....or else, making it clear it wasn't nice to kid about things like this. Sure enough, there was this bold and horrible brush hair....and a long one, right where I had seen in a few minutes earlier. Well sir, there was this huge Homer Simpson "Doah" yelled out, while he put both hands to the top of his head. I know what he was thinking. That's how loud it was. Suzanne started tugging my arm, so that I would follow her out of the workshop, before Norman could find something to swing my way. "I thought he would want to now about it," I replied, to the tugging at my arm. "That's true....but you're not the one he wanted to find it," she said, looking back to see her father staring down at the rogue hair, trying to figure out how to extricate it without ruining the nice glossy finish. I've always hated when that happens to me, so I just assume fellow painters would feel the same; and apparently they do. They just don't want to know about it!
     Norm treated me as a writer. By this, I mean, he was respectful, but deeply concerned, that my being as "handy as a foot," was going to be a problem down the road.....when for example, we needed a door hung, or shudders put up on the front windows. So as if to send along a little message, he bought me a ladder and a drill. I never did get those shudders up. But he saw a spark in Andrew's eyes, and knew there was a kindred spirit within. He wasn't wrong. Andrew could do most anything he set his mind to, from building with huge Segwun models with lego, to art work on both board and canvas. We have a large painting in the back room, of the store, near the stage, that he did many years ago (in the early years of high school), from a photograph I snapped, while he and I were paddling on Algonquin Park's Smoke Creek, that rambles between Tea and Smoke Lakes. So that still doesn't make him a guitar restorer of the highest order. You're right. Suffice to say, he works hard to satisfy his customers, and that afteral, is the only outcome one needs to respect.
     Norman has been written about in numerous Muskoka books, in magazines and feature articles in the local press, and he is, by the standards of his peers, a very important person in the history of the local boat-building industry. He was treated as a VIP when he'd attend antique boat shows in the area, and he seemed to know just about everyone connected to the vintage boat community. He'd introduce his grandsons, Andrew and Robert to his friends, then his daughter, Suzanne, and then, oh yes, "this is my son-in-law the writer!" I was honored, he would go that far. I still had a lot of respect for his accomplishments, and I'm sure, deep down, he had a minor respect for me. Just not enough to gain entry into the workshop. In this regard, I took a backseat to his grandsons....who were always welcome, except when there was wet varnish. Both lads used to scuff their feet, and it raised a dust that would get into the finish.
     The circa 1970's portrait above, of Norman Stripp, was drawn by hobby painter, George Marquis, of Sharon, Ohio (a Lake Rosseau cottager), from a preliminary sketch by the artist, completed during a boat trip on Lake Muskoka, during a return trip to Windermere after a stop at the Greavette Boat Works, in Gravenhurst; and the invoices shown, were part of his paper archives, found after his death many years later, showing receipts from Pal Engines of Orillia, and Duke Boats of Port Carling. We have hundreds of these receipts, which, if we were to sell them, would be worth several thousand dollars as Muskoka collectables. We've kept some of the best examples for Robert and Andrew as family keepsakes. A smidgeon of Norman's biography, also involves his survival, on the water, of the same storm, of the 1930's that sank the Muskoka Lakes steamship, Waome. He was bringing a boat back from Gravenhurst, on Lake Muskoka, when the wind shear event arose, and toppled the steamship. He was able to bring over the boat's canopy to make the launch more wind resistant, and stayed near shore in case the boat was over-turned by wind and waves. He survived the sudden, violent storm. While some aboard the Waome perished. It is said the wind was so strong, it actually moved boulders on the shore, in the area of Beaumaris.
     Thanks for taking the time from your busy schedule, to visit with me today. Lot's more Muskoka related collecting stories, coming this week. Please come again.