Keeping Salvelinus seaworthy
Father and son team share time and work together

Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jun 09/99) - The Carrs' 40-year-old Salvelinus Cape Island-style boat has been a way for Bill and his son, John, to spend some quality time together.

The boat was first commissioned by the department of Fisheries and Oceans in 1957 and was used for years in the Beaufort Delta until Bill bought it in 1988.

"I think the boat has been a bonding experience. Certainly we brought it up the Mackenzie when John was maybe 14 or 15," Bill says while he sands the vessel's wood hull at the Yellowknife docks.

"Now we've got a chance to be together again."

Though the two used the boat years ago, the Salvelinus has sat basically unused on the Yellowknife docks for the past three years.

Aside from sanding the hull, Bill, 73, says the two will put paint an coat of epoxy on the hull and then maybe add some fibreglass.

"We're allotting a couple more weeks to get the hull done. Then we'll put it in the water," says John, who recently completed a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Alberta.

"It's something that literally you could spend years on."

But the time spent on the task of making the Salvelinus shipshape has more to do with spending time together than on honing engineering skills.

"I don't figure I have a lot of time left (to spend with Bill,)" John says. "Especially once I start with a job and get a family and a mortgage. I won't have as much time to spend with him so it's nice to take this time."

Part of the distinction of the Salvelinus pleasure boat is its wood frame, something less and less common among Northern boats.

But wood boats have their own culture, John says.

"There's a feel about wood that you don't get from metal. And the cold dry climate up here protects the wood from rotting. In Florida or Vancouver it would degrade."