Art Form: Traditional wooden boat building

Location(s): Hessel (Mackinac County)

Paul Wilson

Paul Wilson working on a model boat, photo by Nick Schaedig

Paul Wilson in his workshop, photo by Nick Schaedig

Model boats by Paul Wilson, photo by Nick Schaedig

Paul Wilson (1938-1923) began building wooden boats when he was fifteen and taught full-scale and model boatbuilding for many years. He was a member of the leadership team that researched, developed, fundraised, and created the Great Lakes Boat Building School in Cedarville, Michigan. Paul taught several early classes at this school and served as board president for its first four years of existence (2005-2009). Paul was also an early curator/docent at the Les Cheneaux Maritime Museum in Cedarville, Michigan, and developed and constructed the museum’s boatbuilding program. Beyond existing as a mere living demonstration of what was once a necessary skill, this museum program facilitates mutually enriching relationships among current boat builders. The building in which the program operates is a place where novice and intermediate boat builders share knowledge, ask questions, and help each other. Program participants create small boats for auction every summer, and are engaged in developing a community rowing program. They have also networked with staff of maritime museums in Alpena, Michigan and Marinette, Wisconsin, to orchestrate museum-sponsored rowing teams, build-it-and-row-it events, and team rowing tournaments between the museums and other clubs. The Les Cheneaux Rowing Club uses the facilities at the Great Lakes Boat Building School, also in Cedarville, in no small part due to Paul’s labor and expertise.

Paul was also an internationally acclaimed model boat builder, something that he did more often after he retired from is position as a mathematics professor at Lake Superior State University. He constructed scale models of actual, historic boats exhibiting key aspects of local, vernacular design. Not only are these models on display in the Les Cheneaux Maritime Museum, complete with drawn plans for their reproduction, but each model corresponds with an existing full-size replica, some of which are on display and some of which are still in use. These include lapstrake rowing skiffs, Mackinaw boats, and another gaff-rigged sloop. In 2015, he was awarded a gold medal in the Master category and a gold medal for “Best in Show” at the annual convention of the Nautical Research Guild. His model of a wood and canvas Penobscot canoe has graced the cover of their academic publication, The Nautical Research Journal.

- Nick Schaedig, 2016