N E WS


ON THE HUNT TO TRACK DOWN THE ORIGINAL PROSPECTOR


NORTHERN CANOEMAN


As a paddler, canoe builder and filmmaker on the road documenting what the canoe means to North America, it was only fitting to explore the legacy of the Prospector. Likely the most popular canoe in history, the Prospector’s fame is largely due to the writings and films of the legendary Canadian author


and filmmaker Bill Mason. However its its versatility and functionality that has kept the Prospector a classic after 90 years on the market. The original cedar-canvas Prospector was built by the Chestnut Canoe Company. Nowadays, there are many different Prospector designs, built in a variety of materials, but I kept asking myself, what happened to the original Chestnut Prospector? It was as I traveled this past summer to interview some of North America’s leading canoe experts while filming my upcoming feature,


Canoe: Icon of the North, that I discovered the answer in the small town of Wakefield, Quebec. In the shop of Headwaters Canoes, Hugh Stewart runs a small operation specializing in wood and canvas canoes —and is, remarkably still building on the original Chestnut Canoe Company forms. Stewart grew up paddling and spent his summers as a youth exploring Ontario’s Algonquin Park at summer camp. Later he learned to repair cedar-canvas canoes while operating a wilderness camp in northern Ontario. It was a necessity to maintain the wooden vessels, but


16 PADDLING MAGAZINE


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