MidlandToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to a column about the Norse Boat and Ski Company, published May 26.
I read with great interest the story of the Norse Boat and Ski Company and it brought back memories of many years ago.
My father purchased a cottage in Cognashene in 1949. Included with it was a 19-foot Norse inboard that was anything but new at the time. It was powered by a four-cylinder Willys Jeep engine and shifting gears was accomplished by first depressing a clutch on the floor — similar to cars of the day. Unfortunately, it was not a very dependable engine, but my father was quite handy mechanically and kept it operating.
Each spring, he and I would drive to Penetang to sand and paint the boat while it was still in the storage shed. I, as the less experienced painter, was assigned the bottom of the boat to sand and paint lying on the cold concrete floor.
The boat served us well for several years, but by the late 1960s it had to be replaced by (of all things) an aluminum outboard.
I can still remember admiring many Norse boats, all larger than ours, that travelled up and down the shores over the summer. The beautiful wood lines of those boats could not be duplicated by either fibreglass or aluminum.
Lawrence Ward
Toronto
