Ozias Dodge's Umbrella Canoe
Mr. Dodge is a Yale man, an artist, and an enthusiastic canoeist. The prow of his little craft has ploughed its way through the waters of many picturesque streams in this country and Europe, by the river-side, under the walls of ruined castles, where the iron-clad warriors once built their camp-fires, and near pretty villages, where people dress as if they were at a fancy-dress ball.
When a young man like Mr. Dodge says that he has built a folding canoe that is not hard to construct, is inexpensive and practical, there can be little doubt that such a boat is not only what is claimed for it by its inventor, but that it is a novelty in its line, and such is undoubtedly the case with the umbrella canoe.
How the Canoe Was Built
The artist first secured a white-ash plank (A, [Fig. 65]), free from knots and blemishes of all kinds. The plank was one inch thick and about twelve feet long. At the mill he had this sawed into eight strips one inch wide, one inch thick, and twelve feet long (B and C, [Figs. 66] and [67]). Then he planed off the square edges of each stick until they were all octagonal in form, and looked like so many great lead-pencils (D, [Fig. 68]).
Fig. 76.—Frame of umbrella canoe.
Mr. Dodge claims that, after you have reduced the ash poles to this octagonal form, it is an easy matter to whittle them with your pocket-knife or a draw-knife, and by taking off all the angles of the sticks make them cylindrical in form (E, [Fig. 69]); then smooth them off nicely with sand-paper, so that each pole has a smooth surface and is three-quarters of an inch in diameter.