. My birthday gift to myself begins with the first strip.

Strip by strip it began to take shape. The time consuming part was picking colours and patterns.

Completing one side was easy, lots of room to over estimate the length of strips.

. With some help from Jurek, I trimmed back the excess wood to the mid line. Just a little nerve wracking with a sharp chisel and mallet.

Success - a straight line to work with on the second side.

Jurek giving moral support while I wrestle in another strip.

The gap begins to close

Spoke shaving the bow to finish off the strips for attaching the outside stem. Ya get really familiar with this tool!

This was scary - one wrong move and I thought I'd cut the end of the canoe - and all to shape the outside stem

. Filling the cracks and staple holes. I’m about to learn that it’s better to use the fill sparingly – sanding this stuff down was time consuming.

Thank Goodness for electric sanders! With the right clothes (black showed off all the sawdust well!) I could actually get home with some cleans spots on me!

The sanding is finally over and it’s ready to be glassed.

With a little help from shop friends Ron and Kurtis, the glassing began and I got to see the real colours of the wood.

This was the look I had to temporarily say goodbye to before sanding the outside one last time

Just when it looked so good – time to sand it down again for the final coat of varnish.

FINALLY – removing it from the mould – independent canoe at last.

Everything done on the outside now had to be done on the inside – scraping, sanding, filling, sanding – but this time done while bending over into the canoe.

. Glassing the inside – seeing that great pattern emerge again.