We believe that there are only two summer camps in the country with a program in which boys learn how to build wooden canoes from scratch - one in Maine and the other right here on Lake Summit in North Carolina!
And boys here not only build (and paint) new canoes, but they also renovate boats that are almost 100 years old!
If you have not visited during the summer in the last 20 years, you should really see the Boat Shop in action. We have a “mold” that the boys learn to work the wood around. From literally “steaming” wood for bending, to painstakingly sanding and tacking ribs in place, to the long process of hanging the boat in its canvas “hammock”, to sealing and painting - they get to be a part of it all!
Of course, in 1922, wooden canoes were the only kind around.
If you didn’t know how to maintain and repair them, you’d soon be out of a fleet. So from the earliest days boys learned hands on how to repair the canoes as just another part of their summer experience.
At some point in the 1940’s, working in the Boat Shop became closer to what it is now. Not just a place to do the necessary work of keeping our wooden canoes afloat, but also a place for boys to learn the life lessons that such patient work develops.
In the 70’s and 80’s the Boat Shop’s wood focus went dormant. Interest turned to building the “new” fiberglass C-1’s & kayaks on our own molds and there are also some of those boats still around today. However, pouring fiberglass in to a mold, while producing a great boat (until today’s plastic made them old-fashioned as well ), did not offer nearly the same life lessons that the art of wooden canoe building did.
In the 90’s, David Bell had the passion to resurrect the Boat Shop in to a place to do both the necessary backlog of work on our treasured decades-old fleet as well as have boys learn hands on from our craftsmen.
Now the shop works year round again. And during the summer, in between lessons in canoeing, sailing, kayaking, horseback riding, rock climbing, etc… they can spend time in the Boat Shop.
We believe that the educational value goes far beyond the carpentry skills learned. In the era of instant gratificaiton, the art of hand building something that will not be finished in a camp session is immense. When boys work on a canoe, they know that they likely will not see it launched until the next summer.
This is why when the boys are offered the chance to write their names on the planks before the canvas goes on, they flock to it. They get the idea of being part of project that will be around much longer than their own camper years!
The paint jobs on some of the canoes also can become quite creative. While most stay standard primary colors, we now also have some like a dragon and an orca.
Come visit the shop this summer and see our timeless fleet being used on the lake every day!
Camp Mondamin is a traditional and unique summer camp for boys, ages 6 – 17, founded in 1922 and located in Tuxedo, North Carolina.
