October 18:

The rest of the summer was occupied by typical summer activities, and we took a break from all canoe work. When the fall rolled around, it was time to get this finished. We had a hard deadline approaching, as come the end of November we would be displaying the canoe at a Christmas Craft sale, and beginning to sell raffle tickets to win the canoe.

My two sons and myself got together with my friend Albert at his work's workshop for a morning of sanding.

We found a few places that needed a minor touchup to remove glue squeeze-out.

Then we remove the seats and yoke and proceeded to sand.

November 8

Albert sanded on another date when I couldn't make it, and then I came out to his home shop on another saturday and sprayed Spar Urethane on the canoe.

It was tiqht quarters and I did not get many photos, and the one is downright blurry, but you get the idea. (He also sanded and sprayed some more when I was not available.)

November 22:

On the 22nd of November was the public unveiling. Our church was hosting a Christmas Craft+Art sale, featuring local artisans. The canoe was displayed at this event and we started selling raffle tickets for the canoe.

(As an aside, the legal requirements and bureaucratic steps to hold a legal raffle in Ontario are really quite extensive. Let's just say no more on that issue.)

Here are the photos from that event, which show the finished canoe.

Albert and Myself, posing with the Canoe -- and sorry, I never did remember to bring a scale to check the finished weight. It was over 50lbs for sure, but nowhere near 60lbs.

January 21, 2015 And in the end, it all came down to this. Just over 1 year since our first meeting, the ballots were dumped into the soup pot. Albert's daughter squeezed her eyes shut and reached in to pull out a name, and the canoe would soon be on it's way to a new home.

And that brings us to the end of this story of the canoe build. I enjoyed the build, and documenting the build, and hope you enjoyed following along.