An engaging collection of essays extolling the virtues of traditional outdoor equipment from wooden canoes to cast-iron skillets from the 1999 recipient of the Michigan Author of the Year Award presented by the Michigan Library Association. "From a Wooden Canoe" is a gift book with substance--one that will command a place on a shelf of treasured possessions. Illustrations.

Back in print: A revised second edition of a classic how-to book on canoe building. The new edition is updated to include advances in glues and techniques since the original was published, as well as five new canoe plans, builder tips and paddle carving.

When restoring a wood-canvas canoe, you don't work on it, you work with it. In This Old Canoe: How To Restore Your Wood-Canvas Canoe, Mike Elliott guides you through the process of bringing your classic heirloom back to life. He takes you step-by-step through all aspects of a canoe restoration from assessment to the finishing touches. Concise instructions clearly illustrated, provide the passport you need to embark on this unique adventure.

In these acclaimed essays, Jerry Dennis, widely recognized as one of our finest writers on nature and the outdoors, turns his attention to old passions and finds new reasons to appreciate them. This engaging collection explores the quintessential American sports of canoeing and camping and pays tribute to the things worth keeping, from wooden canoes and pocket knives to cast-iron skillets, long-johns, canvas tents, and fine moments on the water. At a deeper level, it is about respect—for our possessions, for the natural world, for one another—and about the pleasures of a life well spent. From a Wooden Canoe is a celebration of the good things and the simple pleasures of life outdoors. It is a book to be treasured, to be read on winter evenings and rainy afternoons, and to be kept handy on a cabin shelf. PRAISE: “Jerry Dennis knows the good stuff: How to make your matches waterproof; why it’s good to have a Thermos handy; and how long johns got their name. Mr. Dennis also knows how to write amusing, informative essays about the gear we use outdoors. From a Wooden Canoe is the most satisfying kind of nature writing because it makes you want to get up and get out. Give these essays a good read, and then find your own canoe.” —Wall Street Journal “As Jerry Dennis’s recent book, From a Wooden Canoe, attests, canoes do inspire passion and fidelity. The thirty-one pieces here—most of them from the pages of Canoe and Kayak magazine—include tender odes to hand-hewn wooden paddlers and the rough work of portaging, as well as reflections on other old-school outdoor stuff: homemade waterproof matches, the smell of canvas, and the mysterious, indestructible thermos.” —The New Yorker “Dennis writes concise, well-informed, witty prose; his tone is friendly and appreciative of tradition without being maudlin. The celebratory tone of most of the essays is nicely tempered by a send-up of curmudgeons and a concluding essay that might have come from O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night. Recommend this fine example of literary outdoors writing to fans of Bill Barich and W.D. Wetherell.” —Booklist

Now anyone can make their own, custom-built canoe guaranteed to draw raves on land and water alike. This comprehensive, detailed guide to the process of contructing a high-quality wood strip canoe is written especially for the novice boat builder. All phases of construction are extensively illustrated with color photos and line drawings.

Parks and Recreation actor and Making It co-host Nick Offerman shares his humorous fulminations on life, manliness, meat, and much more in this New York Times bestseller. Growing a perfect moustache, grilling red meat, wooing a woman—who better to deliver this tutelage than the always charming, always manly Nick Offerman, best known as Parks and Recreation’s Ron Swanson? Combining his trademark comic voice and very real expertise in woodworking—he runs his own woodshop—Paddle Your Own Canoe features tales from Offerman’s childhood in small-town Minooka, Illinois—“I grew up literally in the middle of a cornfield”—to his theater days in Chicago, beginnings as a carpenter/actor and the hilarious and magnificent seduction of his now-wife Megan Mullally. It also offers hard-bitten battle strategies in the arenas of manliness, love, style, religion, woodworking, and outdoor recreation, among many other savory entrees. A mix of amusing anecdotes, opinionated lessons and rants, sprinkled with offbeat gaiety, Paddle Your Own Canoe will not only tickle readers pink but may also rouse them to put down their smart phones, study a few sycamore leaves, and maybe even hand craft (and paddle) their own canoes.

The beauty of this book is that the construction bugs have already been worked out of the designs. Plans, step-by-step instructions, material lists photographs and detailed diagrams.