John Ward West, Boatbuilder

The very first “boat” John Ward West built was a dugout canoe. He lived with his father on Nelson Island. West Lake (named after my Grandfather, John West, who settled there in the late 1890′s) is fairly large and a joy to explore in a canoe.

Around 1933 my grandfather was crafting a canoe, and Pop chose to build one at the same time, but a little smaller. They each used a “downed” cedar tree and worked together, with Pop copying his father’s work, learning as he went. He was around 20 at the time and had worked in a sash and door factory in Vancouver for 4 1/2 years so was familiar with woodworking and tools.

He used an adz to remove the wood from the center of the log. He said some people burned the wood out, and that he tried it, but decided to “hew” it. The adz (like an axe laid flat) was a dangerous tool around the ankles and he had to be very careful using it. He used a “drawknife” to smooth the rough inside edges. A draw knife is a flat blade with a handle at each end, used to shave wood. He needed to sharpen the blade constantly in order to shave the surface smooth.

The canoe was about 8 feet long and the hull about 3 inches thick when finished. It was a flat stern canoe, with a pointed bow and flat bottom. He split a block of cedar to form the stern, then put a cedar board to sit on in the center. He also carved a double ended paddle (the same design the kayakers use) from a cedar log.

He paddled his canoe on the lake, using it to hunt and fish – it was rough and rustic and leaked slightly but he owned it and it stayed upright! The quickest time Pop could paddle his canoe from one end of the lake to the other was 20 minutes.

Eventually the canoe blew away in a windstorm and he didn’t bother looking for it as it would have taken a whole day to check every bay – and it could have sank. Pop moved on to his next boat.

Pop’s second boat was an “Andy Lincoln” Clinker built boat. His father bought it for $25.00 from the Senkler family (who lived on West lake). It was in good condition, fairly new when his father bought it, but by the time Pop bought it from “Pappy” for $5.00, it needed work. He fixed it up and painted it then sold it for $25.00!

Boat number 3 was a 14 foot skiff. He bought regular boat lumber from Vancouver and named the boat “Midget”.

Meanwhile he met and worked for Mr & Mrs Macomber who had a home on Hardy Island. They had a 110 foot pleasure yacht, named Persippia. Pop worked in their home, building shelves and putting cedar beams on the ceiling. He built a 22 foot v-bottom boat and Mr. Macomber bought him a 5 horsepower Easthope complete with shaft, wheel and gas tank as part of his payment. This was named “Pan” after his sister Pansy West. He took his brother, Robin, out to fish in the Strait of Georgia. They fished for Bluebacks around the Powell River area, Harwood Island, Savory Island and Texada Island. They didn’t do very well and decided to go back to logging.

The Skeena Chief, a 39 foot “retired” boat, without an engine, just a shaft and wheel, was his next purchase. He and his brother Robin had logged their father’s property and earned $200.00 each. Pop traded the “Pan” and paid $100.00 to George South for the boat. George South was father to Colonel Codville’s daughters husband. The boat was on skids on the beach in Codville’s Bay in Egmont. The boat was built in a Japanese shipyard in Vancouver and was a British registered ship. It was a poorly designed hull and tended to roll in big seas and the shaft rattled. The boat had just been re-caulked before Pop bought it, but it still leaked. The boat had a cast iron wood stove in it to cook and for warmth. It was the “biggest boat in Egmont” and word got around that he bought a white elephant. He didn’t have enough money left to buy an engine, so his brother Robin bought a car engine for $35.00. Pop paid him back.

The Skeena Chief was rigged for trolling and it “really caught fish and he showed them all” Pop says. He fished out of Bull Harbour in 1940, the season before marrying Mom. He saw other trollers with main poles and bow poles further apart than the Skeena Chief’s, so that winter he moved the main poles and the mast back for greater distance between the poles and it fished even better. He also remodelled the cabin as he was a tall young man and needed head room to stand.

Mom & Pop bought 20 acres in Egmont and lived aboard the Skeena Chief. Pete Saucin owned the property previously and had a house and a shed. He was killed while using a home made wood lathe. It was powered by a car engine and turned very fast – too fast – either the chisel he was using or the the wood he was working on broke and hit him in the head. The property and all the tools went up for auction by a government agent. Most of the tools were sold to Egmont residents, but the property didn’t sell. Pop wasn’t ready to purchase at that time so bought it from the government for $450.00 when they put it up for a tax sale. Pop got a permit to burn the old house, and used the shed until he had time to pull it down, saving the old shakes off the roof for a new shed. The new shed was built of cedar poles, cut from his own property, and was large enough to build a boat!

The property had a nicely sloped beach – a natural area to put in a marine ways. Pop hauled out all the boats in and around Egmont when they required painting or repairs and this provided a much needed service as well as a small ‘off-season’ income.

He (and Mom of course) started building a home on the point. They chose a Cape Cod Style and the plans are framed and hanging in the house now. Pop altered the plans slightly to provide room for their growing family. They had the house lumber cut in a mill at Bargain Harbour (owned by Mr. Spicer) and in Vancouver and transported it by boat to Egmont. They took the Skeena Chief to Thormanby Island and went ashore in the dinghy with gunny sacks and shovels and filled them with sand. They transported them home and had a local bricklayer build the chimney and fireplace for the house, using the sand in the mortar. There were no roads and no electricity. The house was to the tarpaper stage when he decided to build a sawmill.

Pop built the mill, again using cedar pole construction, and shakes for the roof. He “rigged up the mill” equipment, then cut all the siding for the house. Once it was painted white, it looked fabulous – with green shutters with a 1/4 moon cut in each! He then cut lumber for many other homes in Egmont over the next few years. He was in business – “Egmont Marine Ways and Sawmill” was his company. Some of the customers helped him cut lumber in return, some paid cash. Once the Government put restrictions on the logs he could cut, he cut only for himself.

The “MARYANN W” was Pop’s final commercial troller. He realized he needed a bigger, more seaworthy boat to fish the West Coast of Vancouver Island if he was to earn enough to support a growing family. He asked a friend to drive him to Seattle to purchase plans for a 43 foot “Ed Monk Senior” design – “a Classic West Coast Troller”.

He began cutting lumber for the boat in early 1950. He bought 2 forty four foot fir logs, one to be cut for the keel and the other for the keelson. It was difficult to cut the keel to the correct dimensions. He slabbed the log first. His carriage was only 20 feet long so he had to stop and reset over and over to cut the 4 sides of the entire length. The “spring of the log” made it difficult to be exact from one end of the timber to the other, but he ended up with his 6 inch x 10″ keel, 40 feet long with only 1/2 inch discrepancy. The keelson was about the same length but wider to give the boat “backbone”. It sits on top of the keel.

In December 1950 he hired Alec North, an experienced boatbuilder from Lund. Alec boarded with Mom and Pop for the month while he framed the boat with Pop’s help. They laid the keel, the keelson, steamed and bent the ribs, fastened them in and had 2 planks on the bottom and 2 on the top to show the shape of the hull, in 1 month. Pop said he cut many pieces of 1/4 inch thick lumber to make patterns, then “spiled out” the patterns for the ribs and planking.

Apparently they had MUCH advice from friends and neighbours who were very interested to see a boat of this size being built. Finally, Alec North suggested to Pop they just let the others have the first boat so they could take over the project and do it as they thought was correct, and he and Pop would build another……

Alec North finished the job he was hired to do. Pop hurt his back (gee I wonder how) and was “laid up for a whole month” then carried on finishing the boat during the winter, spring and into the summer of 1951. By late July 1951 the boat was ready to launch – engine and all. He was fishing off the West Coast of Vancouver Island by August 1 in the Maryann W.

Pop progressed a long way from building the dugout canoe and was extremely proud of his boatbuilding skills.