The Seaflea Lives On in Muskoka  Part 1

Sept 26, 2024

Story and photos by Dan Pickard

The shores of the Rockhaven Inn on Kashe Lake hosted this year’s Muskoka Fleafest, an event hosted by the Muskoka Seaflea organization. This event is organized every two years to showcase the craftsmanship and ingenuity of the Seaflea boat-building community.

This year’s Fleafest showed a remarkable turnout. Organizers were thoroughly impressed by both the number and the variety of vessels that came out to the event. Attendees arrived from great distances to showcase their boats, with some travelling as far as Michigan, Buffalo, Sarnia, Windsor, and Winnipeg. Given that the Seaflea community is primarily online, in-person events like this help showcase the true size and vibrancy of the community.

Each boat is little more than an amalgamation of plywood, fibreglass, basic control mechanisms, and a small but powerful outboard motor. Handmade by the ingenious registered attendees, the crafts range from elegantly simple plane designs that glide across the water like a magic carpet to those that specialize in racing and cruising applications.

Seafleas in Muskoka

Seafleas have a rich history in the marine world dating back to the 1930’s; a history that the Muskoka Seaflea organization keeps alive to this day. Lead event organizer Chris Taylor, a retired high school media arts teacher, summarized the history and highlighted the intentions of the inventor: “The guy who originally designed these things, his name was William Jackson, and he lived in Bass Lake Indiana. He designed hundreds of little seafleas and boats, but his philosophy was that he was going to design boats for the ‘every-man,’ so he wanted them very simple to create. And that’s the beauty of these things is that you don’t have to be a skilled carpenter to build these. If I can build them, then anyone can build them.”

The core tenet of Muskoka Seaflea is to give every interested builder the resources and the community to make their project a reality: providing new builders with the plans and know-how to go from printed plans to a working watercraft. Typically, a new driver can expect to throw about 500 dollars into materials and motors to create a finished product they can have a great time on the water with. Many of the motors present at the Muskoka Flea Fest were 9.9hp or 15hp motors, which were more than sufficient to propel the lightweight crafts at remarkable speeds.

Yesterday and Today

For many of the attendees, there was a strong nostalgia aspect given the history of these boats. Tom, an attendee who drove in from Winnipeg, was there to continue using a Yellow Jacket style Seaflea his father had built from a popular mechanics magazine back in the 70’s. He concurred that nostalgia (plus low costs) were strong motivating factors to continue the hobby.

Chris Taylor had grown up with these boats, especially models that were constructed in the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s. He agreed that nostalgia is a large contributing factor to his continued enthusiasm, one which he and other attendees pass down to the next generation. “It’s a good family project,” he said, “They can build these things with their sons or their daughters or their grandkids plus it’s a low barrier to entry and its affordable, and that’s the thing, you don’t have to spend thousands and thousands of dollars.”

Current trends in affordability suggest that people looking to get into recreational activities like boating will be looking for ‘low barrier to entry’ products that will give them the same enjoyment on the water that boaters know and love. Seafleas are an ideal opportunity for new boaters to both get involved in the lifestyle and apply their own creativity. The designs present at Muskoka Flea Fest ranged from the simple hydroplane designs of the mini-max and mini-most boats to the more advanced Yellow Jacket designs to the Jinx’s, which almost resemble full consumer boats. Each builder chooses their level of involvement and complexity, and the community is there to help if things go wrong.

Gerry, the father of winning racer Xavier, took on a Seaflea build as a project with his sons during the Covid-19 lockdown. After a friend reminded him of the boats, they bought the plans from the Muskoka Seaflea website; “We paid to have them shipped in the tube, as they were already printed, and then we made templates of them. So if the young guys want to build one in ten years, there are already wooden templates for the minmax.”

As for the building experience, Gerry and his friend built two boats alongside their sons. “Once they announced they were doing this event in 2024, I came out and did it, so I thought that we would come back again this year.”

Next issue: Dogs in Fleas – Racing

Dan Ford-Pickard is a digital media generalist who works in sales, design, and marketing for Canadian Boating.