A canoe is many things to a Widjiwaganite: floating home, shelter, transport, memory-maker. This is the story of one of those canoes.
As featured in Letters from Camp Magazine – Winter 2023.
Bruce, center, with two friends and W3.
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A canoe is many things to a Widjiwaganite: floating home, shelter, transport, memory-maker.
This is the story of one of those canoes.
It begins with Bruce Casselton, who joined the staff team at YMCA Camp Widjiwagan in 1970. Proud, a little nervous, and eager for adventure as a newly minted counselor, Bruce was assigned a wood Thompson canoe, marked “W3.” He still remembers his first impressions of the canoe that would take him on a trip leading a group of campers: not exactly the champion of Widji’s floating fleet.
“It was old, scarred and heavy,” he recalled, “but it was mine for the trip.”
Bruce headed out with W3, counting on that canoe to get him through. And it did, a successful journey and new memories in the books.
Unbeknownst to Bruce, however, shortly after he and his five campers returned from their eight-day trip, W3 was sold to a former camp counselor who was moving to Ithaca, New York, to teach at Cornell University. It wasn’t until a 2016 visit to camp the Bruce noticed the canoe wasn’t in the W3 spot. Curious about its absence, and with the support of his wife, Bruce started a search that lasted nearly four years.
Remembering that canoe repair and sale records used to be kept in a recipe-card box on the Trail Director’s desk, Bruce searched the camp and found the box on a shelf stacked with dust-covered canoe parts. The records led Bruce to Jack, the former counselor who bought W3 back in 1970. Jack had sold the canoe to an acquaintance in 1978 but believed it was still in the Ithaca area.
Bruce had a letter to the editor published in the 2017 issue of “Wooden Canoe” and reached out to the 185 New York members of the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association for help. The efforts weren’t fruitful, but the spirit of the responses he received encouraged him to keep going.
“I felt as if I had gained 185 new friends in New York,” Bruce said.
In 2020, after periodic checks on Craigslist, Bruce spotted an old canoe that looked from the low-quality photos like it might be a Thompson. Could this be his W3? After reaching back out to Jack and corresponding with the seller, Dave, it was confirmed — the search was over!
Bruce bought the 90-year-old canoe and, together with Dave, arranged the 854-mile transport from Ithaca back home to Minnesota. After some help from restoration volunteers at Urban Boatbuilders, W3 was ready to go back to camp. On a September Saturday in 2022, Bruce, along with his long-time canoeing pals John and Dan, brought W3 back home to Widji, ready to continue sharing the magic of the wilderness.
Bruce reflected on W3 and the special role canoes play for Widji’s campers:
“The camp’s earliest canoes carried the weight of paddlers, trail equipment, and the fragile dream of what Widjiwagan could become. They made the pursuit and achievement of the wilderness camp dream possible.”