Tara Kearsey
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 23/00) - Hop in, there's lots of room in this baby!

A group of Yellowknife boaters piled into their oversized canoes on Back Bay Saturday to head out for the annual Freighter Canoe Barbecue on Pillow Island.

The giant wood and canvas canoes were used throughout the North years ago, especially on the Hudson Bay coastline, to carry heavy freight.

The standard size of a freighter canoe is 18 feet long, six feet wide and it's designed so that it can take a motor.

"The 22 footer can take 4,500 pounds ... you can carry quite a bit with them," said Laura Seddon, sitting in an 18-footer which can carry up to 2,000 pounds.

Seddon first came up with the idea for a freighter canoe gathering after her husband Ray Bethke purchased one several years ago.

"We knew a couple of other people who had freighters and were talking at the Wildcat one morning when Laura came up with the idea of just getting out with a couple of people in our freighters and having a barbecue," said Bethke.

That was seven years ago and now the event has become an annual reunion for freighter canoe enthusiasts.

"We've got about 12 to 13 different people now with freighter canoes that they've rebuilt and refurbished," said Bethke.

Bob Bromley owns several freighter canoes, but decided to take his 22 footer out.

"You can sit three people across the middle in this if you need to," said Bromley.

He purchased the canoe four years ago, which he believes was originally owned by the NWT Pipe Band.

"I don't know if they put the whole band in the darn thing and went out picnicking or what, but we have visions of bagpipes blaring in the bow there," he quipped.

Bromley piled his wife Mary Ann, dog Lucy and a friend into the boat before heading out to the island for a feed of caribou sausages and potato salad.

In a few weeks, Bromley and Bethke plan to take two of the freighters out on a moose hunting trip near the North Arm of Great Slave Lake.