This week Back Roads Bill traces back a canoe heritage name that is making a comeback
Many canoe builders start as a “mom and pop” family business, and it reflects upon the meaning of the colloquial expression.
Alan Templain is the original designer. He brought his Wolverine moulds from his hometown in Welland. He migrated northward and created the Wolverine Canoe Factory, once located on Highway 17 North just past the junction of the “goose,” this was 1974. Then, on August 6, posing as sportsmen on an early morning fishing trip, they moved in with small boats. They found nine pounds of completed PCP , another 236 pounds one step away from completion and more than a ton of ingredients.
When I spoke with him on May 7, 2021, Alan told me he went to jail when he was 35. Some of the sentence was spent in the infamous Kingston penitentiary, for assessment, and then he was eventually sent to Joyceville Institution – medium security then on to the Beaver Creek farm camp near Gravenhurst. After approximately seven years he was released.
He popped out his first Wolverine from a split mould in 1965, built in his refurbished backyard chicken coop. Within the design, he retained the classic tumblehome design line of the famed Chestnut Canoe that was a passed-on design from a late 1800s company, the Wolverine Canoe Company of Detroit.“I sold one of my first boats to John Craig Eaton II of the T.E. Eaton family ," he said. Templain had attended Brock University and had put all his money into creating canoe moulds.
Another chapter of the Wolverine was about to begin with Alan hiring Terry Sadler from Brockville as General Manager. Later and before the Oba drug bust, he sold the canoe factory to local interests in Wawa. Brad Buck, the second-generation owner of Buck’s Marina in nearby Michipicoten on Lake Superior said when he was a teenager that “Alan would tell everyone the barrels were full of bug dope.” And that the illegal drugs might be hidden in the bow and stern stems of the canoe.
Wolverine attributes The Wolverine Canoe is a better design than most and now has great heritage value. Here is a testimonial about the Wolverine from canoeist and Wawa resident Hugh McKechnie who purchased a Wolverine from the Canoe Factory in 1974. Bain quotes me in this article: “Backroads Bill Steer, a northern Ontario journalist who has also been researching Wolverine, believes our canoe is at best, one of the first 100, and at worst, one of the first 300, made in Welland before the builder moved to Wawa.
“I am tired of fibreglass and I am getting out of the business. I have nine Canoe moulds for sale. These moulds are what's left of the Wolverine Canoe Company. He will be 84 this year and still rides his Harley Electra Glide Highway King which weighs approximately 900 pounds.
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