: Can any one give me some advice on where to start? My High School Students
: are capable and some will leave High School to go and live out on the
: land. So I would prefer to cultivate life skills which are applicable to
: them.

: Any help?

What kind of boat are you thinking of building? Gil Gilpatrick's book on strip building canoes comes with plans you can use if you are thinking of building with cedar strips. According to the book, he teaches ( taught?) classes at a community college in Maine where the students built their own boats. Some built smaller canoes for recreation and some built larger canoes (guide boats) and used them for earning money as guides.

If you are working in an area with limited access to power tools and cutting strips is not an option, then consider birchbark canoes. The basic design can be easily adapted so it can be covered with canvas instead of birchbark, should birch trees not be handy. Wilderness Way magazine had a 3 part series on building a birchbark canoe using handtools. You can order back issues from their website: www.wwmag.net The series was in volume 6, issues 2, 3, and 4.

I was just looking through the middle part of the series today, and I was impressed with the abundant illustrations and clearly written details. My previous source of information on building birchbark canoes is from a 100+ year-old book titled: The American Boy's Handy Book, by Daniel Beard. A facsimile edition is available from online book vendors. Try amazon.com If that source is not good for you, e-mail me and I'll scan the few pages and e-mail them to you. (It is LONG out of copyright!)

Beard's book also has details on constructing a dugout canoe, which he personally observed being made in the mid to late 1800s. Dugouts are still widely used throughout the world as the basic materials are widely available, and the necessary tools are few. It won't be a light boat, but it will be a strong one.

Fabric covered boats are possible, too. The frames use little materials, some can be built with hand tools, and the prices of the frames canbe low. But, if you have problems with delivery of packages, and ready cash is in small quantities, then high-tech fabrics might not be the thing for you. Fortunately canvas is pretty available, and you can use many types of paint to waterproof these. If you are building with hand tools look for a design that has many steam bent ribs (a steamer is fairly easy to fabricate) If you have access to a powersaw, and a drill, look at the Walrus design written up in George Putz's book on canvas covered kayaks. Check Amazon.com for information on this book. The advantage of this design is that once you have the forms made you can reuse them many times to assemble kayak frames. For a group, or an ongoing project this is ideal. You make the forms once and each succeeding group can benefit from them. If you want ot save a few dollars on the building forms, look at my web page

http://www.geocities.com/eureka/business/7882/walrus17.htm

where I have translated his numbers into simple coordinates you can graph to define the shape of the building forms. The numbers are easier to read if you print out the webpage.

If you can get marine plywood delivered to you, then stitch and glue construction makes a lot of sense. The boats go together quickly, and you can cut the panels with a handsaw if you need to. There are a LOT of designs to choose from.

Hope this helps. Keep us informed on how your project goes.

PGJ