Kirk Wipper
N It was not until his arrival in Toronto in 1946,
after war-time service in the Canadian Navy, that Kirk really made contact with the canoe. When involvement with the YMCA took him north to be an instructor at Pinecrest summer camp, Kirk discovered the canoe’s true value as a vehicle to connect with the natural world. There he quickly realized that the canoe was a device for leader- ship training, with its emphasis on self-reliance and resourcefulness. Early in his career of teaching in the School of
Physical Education and Health at the University of Toronto in 1957, Kirk bought Camp Kandalore, a boys’ camp on Haliburton’s Lake Kabakwa. A couple of years later, the head of Kirk’s univer- sity department presented him with a basswood dugout canoe from the 1890s which had been found on his farm near Lakefield. The canoe was given pride of place in the dining hall at Kan- dalore, and the collection began. The dugout was soon joined by other unique
canoes, including two vintage Peterborough freight canoes which were treasured as much for their historic value as for their usefulness in pro- viding ferry service to Chapel Island, as platforms for stage performances, as diving rafts, or just as large baggage conveyors. Three canoes be- longing to the Arctic explorer George Douglas, a birchbark canoe from Maniwaki, Quebec, and several others formed the nucleus of Kandalore’s growing collection, which Kirk had named the Kanawa International Museum of Canoes, Kayaks and Rowing Craft. Without intentionally starting out as a collector,
This 15-foot basswood dugout was carved to a thickness of three-quarters of an inch.
Kirk had developed a passion for canoes and his collection began to snowball. His many friends in his university, camping and Royal Life-Saving So- ciety circles soon grew into a worldwide network of contacts which included canoe builders and museum curators who kept him informed of any interesting watercraft as they became available. Opportunities to acquire special canoes often
came with a hefty price tag. In Kirk’s words: “It of- ten involved big sacrifices—I was often in debt, but I knew what was being done was right and it had to be done. I felt I had a responsibility to do the best possible job of collecting so I could tell the whole story of the relationship of canoes and kayaks to the environment and to the history of Canada. Once I had started down this path there was no turning back.”
“I was often in debt, but I knew what was being done was right and it had to be done.”
30 n CANOE ROOTS fall 2006
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