MAINE BOATS, HOMES & HARBORS • April 23, 2020
Many of us grew up with canoes like these. Wood-and-canvas, dark green on the outside with worn, stained interiors; big enough to hold a small team of campers and some waterlogged, canvas-covered portaging rucksacks. Many were built in Maine. Today in northern Maine, wood-and-canvas canoes are still being built by hand by two craftsmen in the tiny town of Atkinson, where Rollin Thurlow and Jerry Stelmok, old friends and former business partners, have shops three miles apart.