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< November/December 2004
	Features
Coming Full Circle with Adirondack Guide-boats A case for the venerable vessel once used to penetrate Northeast forests Kenny Clarke

I was born in a remote town in the eastern Adirondack Mountains of New York. My parents’ house sat high on a hill that was referred to by the locals as Coot Hill. I’m proud to say that “Coot Hillers” are known for, let’s say, being a little wild, maybe even somewhat hillbilly. Rock fights, BB-gun wars, and Dukes of Hazard-style Matchbox car jumping contests were common pastimes among children on Coot Hill.

During less troublesome forays my father would take my brother and I on what we called “canoe trips.” Together we would travel about some remote waterway or chain of lakes deep within the Adirondack Park for five to seven days at a time. At the put-in we would meet up with two or perhaps three other father-and-son combos; they would be paddling shiny green and red canoes.

We, on the other hand, didn’t have a canoe; our boat was a 15-foot Adirondack guide-boat. It was a good-looking craft, gray with black trim. There was nothing “canoe” about this boat, though; seven-and-a-half-foot oars, manned by my father, powered it. Since my brother was older he was given a short paddle to push off from rocks during the technical sections of river. That became a point of contention a few days into our adventure, as I sat jobless in the bow. “Quit your bitching,” my brother yelled from the back of the boat, a phrase we had learned from our grandfather. Swearing wasn’t normally allowed in my family (Coot Hillers had to draw the line somewhere), but my father had heard enough of my complaining and let it slide that one time.

Looking back I’ve often wondered about our guide-boat and its place in the rich Adirondack history. At the height of its development the sleek Adirondack guide-boat, like the gray and black one we had used, was a double-ended craft that averaged about 16-feet in length. Weighing 70-75 pounds, it was easily carried by a single person in the traditional manner: carrying yoke across the shoulders, boat overhead. It could be rowed in either direction and was nearly 40 inches wide at the beam. The guide-boat was almost always equipped with two sets of oarlocks, which allowed the rower to change positions depending upon numbers of passengers and loads hauled. They were traditionally made of wood gathered from the forest, such as cedar, spruce, and pine; and a skilled builder could produce a finished guide-boat in about 300 hours, excluding the oars.

At one time many believed that this curious craft was “invented” by a full-blooded Abenaki Indian named Mitchell Sabattis, who, according to the book The Adirondack Guide Boat, was “…a prodigious fellow who killed many moose, panthers and bear, played the fiddle, and led the singing in the church.” With little evidence to support this claim, a more likely answer is that the boat evolved from a small watercraft deep within the boreal forests of the Adirondacks in the 1830s, a time when travel by water was commonplace.

As the areas surrounding the region were basking in development, the Adirondacks remained an impenetrable wilderness; to gain access to the area early explorers turned to the regions 3,000-plus lakes and ponds, 30,000 miles of streams and 6,000 miles of rivers. The flowing environment provided a pleasant alternative to overland bushwhacking. Although bodies of water were numerous, stretches of land often required the traveler to portage his craft for a mile or two; thus increasing the need for a lighter craft capable of transporting the heavy loads of the trappers and traders of the day.

By the 1840s, an influx of visitors sought refuge in the Adirondacks from urban life, which in turn ushered in a new era for the guide-boat and its owner. Those seeking adventure in the great New York wilderness came to be known as “sports,” and there was no better way for a sport to experience the wilds of the region than in an Adirondack guide-boat. The guiding era began, providing a new source of income for the locals and placing even greater demands on the guide-boat. Now, more than ever, the need for an easily portaged craft that could haul gear--the sports’ payload was often unpredictable, ranging from meager to extravagant--further drove the evolution of the already highly refined guide-boat. For the first time in its history, aesthetics became an important aspect of the craft, as inexperienced sports often chose the guide with the best looking boat for their adventure.

By the 1860s things were once again changing in the region. Visitors were placing less emphasis on hunting and fishing than on recreation. With this boom came the great hotels of the region, each with a small fleet of guide-boats for their guests to use. As the people found new ways to have fun and additional ways to travel, including the train and steamship, the guide and his guide-boat rapidly slipped from abundance to obscurity, ultimately being replaced by the gasoline-powered outboard engine in the early to mid 1900s. The fabled guide-boats were tucked away under porches, stored high in garages and put on display in museums.

It’s 6 o’clock on a Saturday morning. A ringing phone awakens me. The caller from the East Coast has not figured out time zones; his 9 a.m. equals early for me. It’s my brother. After I curse him for calling so early we talk about the standard stuff: who’s not getting along with whom, women, work, news...Toward the end of the conversation he mentions that he has found a mini guide-boat, made and designed by some guys on the New York border in Vermont. He tells me it’s made of Kevlar and weighs only 43 pounds. He wants one…

Five months later I am once again awakened early, only this time it isn’t a telephone ringing--I was having a dream. On Eagle Lake deep within the Adirondacks I was rowing an Adirondack guide-boat, gray in color. An early morning fog was rising off the water; it had rained the night before. Through the fog I could see maple trees dotting the shoreline, the trees in autumn transition from green to orange and red. As quickly as the dream began it was over and I was awake. I knew it was time to visit the Northeast. Less than two weeks later I arrive in that same remote town in the eastern Adirondacks where I was brought up.

After a few days of catching up I sit down to take care of business--e-mails that have been piling up for about a month. As I begin a white business card with a cryptic message catches my eye. It reads, “Kevlar Pakboat, 45 lbs, $1,750.” Next to the business card is a blue brochure from Adirondack Guide-Boat, a company owned and operated by Steve Kaulback and David Rosen in Ferrisburgh, Vt. Leafing through the brochure, I discover that they offer a variety of different guide-boats ranging in price from a modest $1,600 to a prestigious $13,600 for a wooden version. I decide to skip the e-mails (they can wait another month) and investigate further on the company’s Web site.

I find that Steve Kaulback, who holds a fine arts degree from the Pratt Institute in New York City, is masterminding the design and production half of the Adirondack Guide-Boat partnership. He’s been designing and building boats for 23 years and, from what I can tell, isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. David’s passion is just the opposite of Steve’s--he takes care of the business end of the relationship, marketing, staffing, money, and the like. I browse an article on the website in which Steve labels David as the “PT Barnum of watercraft,” which, I guess, makes Steve the guy who saws women in half and puts them back together.

At 2 o’clock, Steve rolls up to the front of his shop in a giant, old station wagon, which vaguely reminds me of the one from National Lampoon’s Family Vacation, faux wood trim and all. On the car’s front quarter panel is a large placard magnet that reads, “Adirondack Guide-Boat.” After my brother and I meet Steve, I comment on what a great car he has, half in awe, half in wonderment that anyone would still drive one. “Yeah, it’s my favorite for hauling boats,” he responds. “If someone made one about 5 or 6 inches wider you could haul a full sheet of plywood in the back, then you’d have something special. They just don’t make them like they used to.” I imagine Steve motoring down the highway, taking up one-and-a-half lanes, sheets of plywood hanging out the back and three or four Adirondack guide-boats loosely strapped to the car’s enormous roof rack. Somehow this is fitting.

We make our selections of three boats to demo. The first is a 10-foot PakBoat, which weighs a feathery 36 pounds. Steve explains that this is the boat that got it all started, a compromise between size and stability first built for his young daughter in 1979. The second is a 12-foot PakBoat, with an enhanced trim package; my brother has been staring at it. And the third is a full-sized, navy-blue 15-foot Guideboat. Steve tells us about one of his customers, Paul Neil, who rows a 16-foot wooden Guideboat in open ocean races. A picture of Paul hangs just inside the shop door, and you can see his head, the tip of an oar and the bow of the guide-boat. Masking the rest of him and the boat are two giant ocean swells. We stand around the photograph and laugh.

As I push off from the small dock in the 15-foot Guideboat Steve proudly proclaims, “Son, that’s the fastest guide-boat made.” After three strong pulls on the 8-foot oars, I’m 30 yards from shore. He’s right, this boat is fast. With my hands crossing in front of me, right hand over left, I brace my feet and take another sweeping stroke with the soft maple oars, propelling myself 15 more yards away from Steve. Four more strokes and I meet up with my brother who is playing in the 12-foot PakBoat, fire-engine red. The afternoon sun is pouring over the small pond and his boat is reflecting red and gold in the shallow water as he lazily casts his fly-fishing rod. Ten-and-two, 10-and-two, 10-and-two…With each stroke the boat gently rocks back and forth, faithfully catching its hard-line chines on the surface of the water.

Back at the shop Steve takes us through the process of building Kevlar boats. Against a wall I see one of the heavy-looking boat molds, the inside highly polished and bright green. Next to the cast rests a freshly plucked burgundy PakBoat. Upon closer examination I can distinguish the layers of Kevlar, strategically sandwiched between sheets of fiberglass. Steve gives us his take on the state of boat-building in America, the words roll from his tongue like poetry. “Today, boat makers are bastardizing all natural detail, putting out Tupperware boats and scoffing at the detail that our grandparents used to know.” As I run my hands along the boat’s sensuous lines, I am reminded of an expensive sculpture, the type you would see displayed on a pedestal in an elegant home or museum. “We take pride in our boats,” Steve continues. “Attention is paid to every detail. We’ve thought of everything.”

He explains that this is the company’s 198th boat of the season. By year’s end the company will have made about 250, miniscule numbers by commercial boat-building standards. But according to Hallie Bond, curator of boats at the Adirondack Museum, these numbers are monumental in a market that produces less than 30 guide-boats per year, most of which are made by homebuilders and one-boat-a-year craftsmen. It’s safe to say that Adirondack Guide-Boat isn’t dominating the market, they’re making it.

After finishing our tour Steve smiles and asks if we’d like to see where the wooden guide-boats are made. We jump at the chance and five minutes later are inside another small shop, only this one’s floor is riddled with sawdust, sandpaper and sharp chisels--no Kevlar here.

Propped in the middle of the room are two 15-foot wooden guide-boats, the first of which is in its early stages of creation. We meet Giles Hoyler, 24, who is expertly attaching strips of western red cedar to the boat’s skeleton of spruce ribs. The second is further along, in the process of being sanded. Looking closely at the boat’s bow I see that someone has taken great care in painstakingly adjusting the 700 or so tiny brass screws so that their slotted heads are perfectly aligned with each other. This particular boat, Steve explains, is scheduled to make an appearance at a Rhode Island furniture show in about two weeks.

After we see the wooden boats Steve leads us outside where he has something that he wants to show us. In the back of the shop we find a guide-boat relic sitting high in a carpeted rack, which Steve estimates to be from the late 1800s, the heyday of guide-boat design and production. On the ground are tattered pieces of fiberglass that he has previously scraped off the boat’s wooden frame. At first glance it looks similar to the two boats inside of the shop but Steve is quick to point out that they are quite different, directing our attention to the vessel’s bottom board. It is at least 3 or 4 inches wider than Steve’s design, miles of difference in the guide-boat building world. “This one is beyond repair,” remarks Steve. “I’ll fix it up some and it will go to someone who wants to put it on display. Hang it on the wall, you know.”

Finishing up, we thank Steve for spending time with us and for letting us abuse his demo boats. We part ways and begin the 45-minute drive back to NewYork. The vision of the old guide-boat, with its coatings of antique paint, is still wandering around my head. I imagine the boat, in a better state, cutting through the water of some remote waterway deep within the heart of the Adirondacks, the morning fog lifting, the leaves of maple trees changing color. Somehow I know that I will be haunted by this boat in dreams to come.