Sept. 13, 2002 Bear Mountain Canoe Company

John Milne, in his All Outdoors column in the North Bay Nugget, wrote in a  recent column on canoes that "some may remember when a brash young fellow  named Ted Moores set up his Bear Mountain Canoe Company in an old stone  building in the hinterlands behind Powassan."  I was one of several people  who, in the early 70s, bought and subdivided a 200-acre farm on what the  locals called "bear mountain" in Chisholm Township.  Ted Moores and his  partner Joan Barrett where part of that group and they fixed up a small log  cabin and eventually began to build the beautiful stone dream home mentioned  above.  Before the house was done, Ted was building beautiful cedar strip  canoes in the house, and people were beating a path to his door.

When Ted and Joan moved on several years later, I bought their property and  live there today.  I have followed Ted's career and recently visited him,  and am pleased to report here on his activity to date.

Ted was a commercial artist in Toronto in the late 60s when he travelled north regularly on weekends and saw strip planked/polyester resin/fibreglass  reinforced canoes at Ross Ellery's canoe shop on highway 11 in trout Creek.  

Fell in love

He fell in love with the idea of making canoes and started a business (Sundance) in Gravenhurst, where he made canoes and learned some of the tricks of the trade.  When he sold Sundance he moved to the property in Chisholm Township and began to work as a cameraman at CKNY in North Bay.  On  occasion he talked canoes with Bill Shorse, who later went on to develop the  North Bay Canoe Company, but building canoes was still in his blood and, as  indicated above, he was soon making them again on bear mountain.

Ted is a remarkably gentle person, but below that exterior lies a passionate, creative, persistent, tough and intelligent man with a mission.  Always interested in the history, design and technology of canoe building, he began to look at successful older designs that were having a renaissance  in the United States, along with the new technology of epoxy resin coatings  and other advances.  After building many beautiful canoes in Chisholm, and  establishing an excellent clientele and reputation-and unable to find  financing to do what he loved to do-he moved on again.

In Bancroft he continued to build, repair and develop an approach that moved  him further to the forefront of the craft.  While there he wrote his book  Canoecraft, which is now in its fifteenth printing and was recently completely updated in a second edition with, among other things, and new chapter on paddle making.  This book has now sold over 200 000 copies and  has been translated into German, and has led to the construction of thousands of canoes by people and organizations around the world.  

Cover of ted Moor's book Canoecraft, which is now in its fifteenth printing and was recently completely updated in a second edition with, among other things, and new chapter on paddle making.

Ted and  his family later moved to Peterborough, "the heartland of Canada's historic  canoe builders," where he expanded his interest to include kayaks, and where  he wrote Kayakcraft, a book on fine woodstrip kayak construction.  One of  the reasons for relocating to Peterborough was to aid in the development of  the Canadian Canoe Museum.  Ted and Joan were instrumental in the relocation  of the largest collection of canoes and kayaks in North America from its  original home in Dorset to Peterborough.  Joan organized the museum's gift  shop and organized the first volunteers who became the lifeblood of the  organization.

Joan has been at Ted's side through all of these projects and currently manages their office and mail order business.  They recently bought a beautiful century home overlooking the Otonabee Valley outside Peterborough,  where he has established a workshop and teaching centre.  Ted runs his  personal "fleet" of boats on the nearby Trent Canal/Otonabee River.  The  company now called Bear Mountain Boats offers canoe kits, full size canoe  plans, videos, etc. (see their website at www.bearmountainboats.com for  details, or call 705 740-0470).

Ted is an outstanding canoe-building teacher and has taught dozens of courses all over North America in maritime museums.  This week he is in Salmon Arm, British Columbia teaching a course on Fine Woodstrip Kayak  Construction, and will be in Brooklin, Maine in September. and in San  Francisco Natural History Park in October.  Ted and Joan's daughters Jennifer and Daisy, born while the couple lived on bear mountain, have benefited from their association with the company's operation.  Jennifer did  many of the photos in the kayak book and now lives on Vancouver Island.   Daisy graduated from an honours degree in nursing from McMaster University  this spring and currently lives in Yellowknife, where she guides on the  Nahanni River, and is getting married this week at the family home in  Peterborough.

When I visited the canoe museum (www.canoemuseum.net) and Ted and Joan in  Peterborough last summer I was told that there was a new definitive book on  canoes pending this summer, in which Ted would be writing a chapter.  The  book, The Canoe:  A Living Tradition (Firefly Books) is now out, and is "a  shining tribute to the North American canoe."  Ted wrote a lengthy chapter  on the mass production of canoes and their availability to the general  population.  Mass production was also connected to the trend towards the  racing of canoes, an area in which Ted has had considerable success over the  years.  Proceeds from the book are directed to the development of the  Canadian Canoe Museum.

The cover of the new canoe book produced by Firefly Books and the  Canadian Canoe Museum, in which Ted Moores of Bear Mountain Boats has a  lengthy chapter.

Ted's biography at the end of the new canoe book mentions the hundreds of restorations he has done on vintage canoes, mahogany runabouts and small woodcraft.  He has also built some of the fastest and finest race canoes in existence.  Ted and Joan have had  some exciting building experiences in the  Central American country of Belize, building racing canoes for the annual  four-day La Ruta Maya canoe race there, covering 180 miles of jungle and  water from Belize to the Guatemalan border.  Through their work, they have  encouraged the revival of the art of backyard canoe building.

Evolved

Ted has evolved as a master craftsman, author and teacher, and has become  one of the top men in his field.  I am writing this in a room where Ted made  many of his early canoes, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to tell  the many people who knew him how his passion has paid off.  When they were  renaming the roads in Chisholm Township I proposed that the 5th side road  where Ted started his business thirty years ago be called Bear Mountain  Road, recognizing Ted's work-so now, Ted is on the map in more ways than  one.