The canoe is the perfect vehicle to navigate northern Minnesota’s lakes and streams. The dugout canoe was replaced by the lighter cedar and birch bark canoe, and when the wood and canvas canoe-building method was developed in Maine in the 1870s, it became the dominant canoe construction method. Unlike the cedar and birch bark canoes, the wood and canvas canoe could be built in factories, and quickly overtook the various methods of lapped plank canoes that were being built in upstate New York, and remained the dominant method of canoe construction until the Grumman Corporation introduced the aluminum canoe following World War II.

Alex Comb has paddled canoes since he was ten years old, and has built and restored wood and canvas canoes since 1980 under the name Stewart River Boatworks. He lives in Knife River, Minnesota, and currently builds 11 models of canvas-covered cedar canoes, along with several models of lapstrake rowing boats.