The Family Yacht

 

Paul (in the bow) and Bob (in the stern) DesJardins returning from a strenuous day of fishing – or just plain exploring. If my image dating is correct, Paul is thirteen and Bob is twelve.

 

 

 

Peterborough Boat Works in Peterborough, Ontario, as I recall, built the boat. It may have been one of their cedar-strip small boats. In any event, it was light and tight; you could bale it with a sponge instead of a gallon can. It could carry all five of us nicely when the family went exploring together.

 

Now that I have the photograph I’m working on ways to find more details about this boat. So far, the Internet hasn’t been too helpful but I’m hoping to find a source to help me out.

 

The motive power was a Johnson Motors horse-and-a-10^th put-put. We could travel a long way on a gallon of gas. We were really proud of our one-lunger and had a friendly rivalry with Don Bloomfield, Jr who was equally proud of his similar Evinrude.

Exploring. There were plenty of places to explore. Someone once told me you could start in Green Bay, follow the shoreline from lake to lake, and travel 1,000 miles (this number needs verification) before seeing the same spot. I remember, as example, an abandoned mine where my Dad, ever the chemist, demystified fools gold, mica and the many other rocks and minerals in the area. Every bend in the shoreline brought new sights, sounds, and smells too grand to capture. But we tried; the biggest danger was running out of budget for film before we ran out of subjects.

I’m stumped by this Picture.

Driftwood, birch trees, rocks, blue sky and blue water every-where. I don’t know why it was called Green Bay because the water was the same deep blue as in this scene.

 

I have no clue as to the location. The slide just says Bobs Lake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Rocky Shore. Again there is no clue as to the location. My first guess would be the south shore of the Bobs Lake Inlet as it enters Green Bay. Second guess is; one of many islands. Third guess; anybody’s guess!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fishing. Fishing was as much for food as it was for fun. It was a bad night if we couldn’t catch at least two good-sized Walleye Pike by trolling twice around the Twin Islands.  There were Pickerel and Bass as well, but the Walleyes were our favorites. One night, Bob thought his line had caught a snag but after a half hour’s struggle, he pulled in a 10 ½ pound salmon (Lake Trout). The next Saturday every store in Westport that sold fishing tackle – that is to say, every store – advertised ‘the lure’ that enticed this mighty fish. Truth in advertising would have revealed it was a beat-up, rusty-hooked old red-and-white plug.

 

After the first few summers we were considered natives so we left the small stuff -- blue gills and sunfish -- for the ‘tourists’ from Toledo, Akron and Sandusky, Ohio.