What is the Past Worth?
As an initial post to this blog, we want to convey the essential reasons we have as to why we want to save and restore this wooden boat. It all has to do with history really and our Committee's position that preserving something from the past is in itself, a worthwhile endeavor. With the rapid advances in technology over the past decade or so, it is very easy to forget about things from the past. This old wooden boat is one of those things and if you are from the Kenora area and were born prior to 1970, or if you have visited Kenora and Lake of the Woods over the past 50 years, it is likely you have some recollection of or saw this boat in its hey day on the lake. You may have even taken a ride on the vessel to spend day at Coney Beach with your friends or family.
The boat plied the waters of the lake beginning in 1936 and served the community as a "water bus" for almost five decades. People who were not well to do - those without a cottage on the lake and who owned their own boat - could get aboard the Argyle II and see what Lake of the Woods was all about. In this sense, the Argyle II was the great "equalizer" allowing people who didn't have the financial resources to get out on the lake.
The boat is also a beautiful piece of marine architecture and represents a bygone era of the region's wooden boat building industry. Our Committee's logo shows the boat right when it was launched in 1936 and we willl be working with the Lake of the Woods Museum over the next few months to obtain more photos of the boat and stories about her journeys on the lake for everyone who reads this blog to enjoy. If you have any photos or want to post a comment about your time on the Argyle II, or you would like to share your memories of her, please do. If you have personal photos of the boat please email them to gcariou@sunsetcountry.net and we will ensure they get uploaded to the blog. If you have a particularly interesting story to tell about the Argyle II or your experiences restoring another similar boat, we would also like to put those up as main posts on this blog so you can email them to the same address and we'll share them with others to read and enjoy.
We are always looking for other folks in the community to sit on the committee so if you are interested please email us and we'll invite you to our next meeting. Our plans for the salvage of the boat from its current site on Channel Island are scheduled to be put into motion in early May of 2008. We are still in need of more donations to offset the cost of this phase of the operation so if you think this is a good cause, please donate what you can. Cheques can be made out to the Argyle II Restoration Fund and mailed to Argyle II Restoration Committee, c/o Box 647, Kenora, Ontario, Canada P9N 3X6. As a token of our appreciation, anyone making a donation of $250.00 or more will receive a limited edition, 16x20 inch signed print of the Argyle II taken by local photographer Tom Thomson.
So why not help us out?
Keep checking back for new posts to this blog, and again, send us your pictures and stories and we'll put them up here for others to enjoy.
History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.
- David C McCullough -
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