Made from heavy wood, they have iron ribs instead of cedar, and the canoes were built overtop of them. The moulds, or forms, simply look like overturned canoes. Each one was used to build 'hundreds and hundreds' of Chestnut canoes over nearly 80 years. Tucked away in an old dairy barn outside Fredericton are seven original Chestnut canoe moulds. 'The Chestnut canoe people had perfected the art of building these canoes over a hull or a form,' said MacGregor.Īnd despite being about 100 years old, several of those original forms still exist. In its heyday, the Chestnut Canoe factory was a destination, he said, with customers going out of their way to make the trip to Fredericton to pick up their canoes and watch the process of steamed cedar planks being bent over a mould to form the ribs. (Submitted by Provincial Archives of New Brunswick) The original building burned, but the one that replaced it still stands today. Chestnut built another canoe factory, much bigger than its first, on York Street.
