Boat restoration a 'labour of love' Posted By GALEN EAGLE.
Lowering his pride and joy into Clear Lake, Prior Smith runs his hands along the smooth finish of the boat's cedar complexion and says, "This was the top of the line."
He's speaking of his 1956 Lakefield Mohawk, a boat he rescued from salvage 20 years ago and spent three years restoring.
The wooden beauty was his first project. His workshop on his Clear Lake property now houses six other classics he has toiled to restore.
"It really is a labour of love," Smith explains.
Pointing to the lake, Smith said there was a time before the 1960s when local waterways would be full of cedar-strip boats like the Mohawk, a time when Peterborough was in many ways the boat-making capital of the country.
Companies such as the Peterborough Canoe Company, the Canadian Canoe Company and the Lakefield Boat Co. built and sold thousands of top-quality boats locally each year, sending them across the world, Smith said.
"In 1953 alone, the Peterborough Canoe Company produced 8,000 boats," Smith said.
But with the fiberglass revolution that swept the boating industry in the early 1960s, the wooden vessels quickly became a thing of the past and the local companies that proudly built them in Peterborough for nearly a century were shut down, Smith said.
Those like Smith have begun to bring the classic boats back and he says the trend is catching on.
"When we moved to this property 18 years ago, there might have been two wooden boats on the lake," Smith said. "Now there are as many as 35."
Those passions have fueled Smith and other local boat-restorers to band together and offer a unique tour of the local workshops that are putting the classics back on the water.
The Trent Severn Antique and Classic Boat Association is offering its Guys and Their Garages Tour on Sept. 22. It will tour three local boat workshops offering a close look at about 70 boats in various stages of restoration.
"The vast majority will be Peterborough area boats. We're trying to keep this extremely local," Smith said. "We will have brought them all together under three shops."
Owners will be on-hand to show off their projects and answer questions.
Smith's Clear Lake shop will be one of the tour's stops along with John Hendrem's shop on Meadowview Road west of Peterborough and Murray Parnell's shop on Keene Road.
The tour will start at 9 a.m. and run until 12:30 p.m. when a lunch will be served at Kenner Collegiate in Peterborough. The group will then tour the Canadian Canoe Museum.
Tickets cost $25 and can be purchased by calling Hendrem at 799-2222.
Participants must register in advance. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the museum.
geagle@peterboroughexaminer.com
| 
