Solo on the Shelburn Part 3 of 4: The Phoenix

by Tim O’Brien

In my previous two articles (part 1, part 2), I told the tales of wrapping and wrecking my canoe on a trip down the Shelburne River and my later attempts to finally recover the canoe and bring it home. In part three, I will describe my efforts to restore the canoe and bring it back to life.

In the spring of 2024, a few weeks after recovering my canoe, I sent some pictures of the canoe to my brother-in-law in Ottawa asking his opinion on repairing it. He sent the pics to a friend of his who was a canoe outfitter, and he in turn showed it to his canoe repair guy who said, “It’s almost not repairable.” All I heard was “repairable,” so I started making plans. 

The canoe is a red 16’ Mad River Explorer made of Royalex. It used to have handsome wood and webbing seats, a standard carry yoke/thwart and beautiful, if old, matching wood gunnels and decks. All of this was damaged or destroyed in the accident. I started the re-build by completely stripping all hardware and fittings from the canoe. All I was left with was the hull and one of the decks. It was disheartening, but I made a list and costed things out, and soon I was looking forward to the project.

I needed gunnels, seats, thwarts, seat hangers, carry yoke, and hardware, which I was able to source from Old Creel Canoe & Kayak. Mike went above and beyond: giving me advice and encouragement and even delivering the gunnels. He shook his head when he saw the pics and wished me luck. I also bought G-Flex epoxy, silicate thickener and some assorted hardware from The Binnacle. 

First thing was to get the hull back into shape. One side was pretty much folded flat onto the floor, and a few tears were folded out. I started by using a heat gun and then hot water, but it was slow going and somewhat frustrating to heat a large enough area and still be able to push, pull or hold it as required. One day, I accidentally found an easier method. On a warm sunny day, I had left the canoe hanging on its side off my canoe rack because there was no room for it. By the next day, the sun and gravity had basically allowed the canoe to “droop” back into shape. It wasn’t perfect, but it was close enough.

Next I got to work with a Dremel and a cutting bit, beveling each crack and tear. This took me a lot longer than I expected, and in the end, I was starting to question my sanity. How was I repairing cracks by making them larger? I followed several different how-to articles and had to trust the experts. Once each crack was beveled, I sanded the area around it, and gave them a quick pass with a propane torch to prepare the surface. I wiped everything down with alcohol, then mixed up the epoxy. Some of the cracks I was able to fill and leave them to dry. For many of the larger tears, I had to form molds from tape and use a lot of thickener to keep the epoxy from running out all over the place. I reinforced the larger tears with fiberglass patches.

At this point the canoe looked like Frankenstein’s Monster, all stitched up and scarred. Sanding took a long time because I wanted it smooth, but I didn’t want to compromise the patches. At this point, I should have painted it, but I still wasn’t certain how I was going to do that. I decided to skip ahead to the gunnels. Drilling and riveting the vinyl gunnels took a whole day alone, but I was happy in the end. The canoe looked like a canoe again.

I set the carry yoke at the correct width and then installed the seats. What a nightmare. 

I had never hung seats before and I made all the mistakes: backwards, upside down, wrong locations, wrong size drill bits, missing hangers and hardware and more. Only when I was done did I realize the rear seat is still too far forwards. I haven’t fixed it yet.

Next came the bow and stern thwarts (carry handles). They were straight forward to install. Finally, I made temporary wood decks by tracing the one surviving original deck. Several coats of spar varnish had them looking good. 

By this time, it was December and although still clear, it was too cold to begin painting. On Christmas Day, my son and I took the canoe to Lake Banook in Dartmouth for its first paddle. I was shocked at how straight it tracked, considering the shape of the hull. I was pretty excited and happy with the results.

In the spring I lightly sanded the whole canoe, taped the gunnel and painted it a bright cheerful red. I used a Wagner spray painter and mixed Tremclad paint 10:1 with mineral spirits. I did two light coats and a few months later, I did another two coats. 

Although there are a few cosmetic issues left to fix, and I still need to install new decks, the restoration is complete. The canoe behaved perfectly for over a half dozen trips in 2025. I even attempted the Tent Dwellers Loop again and succeeded. I’ll save that for the final installment though.