News: The Canadian Canoe Museum Is Getting a New Home
The CBC last week reported that hundreds of canoes belonging to the Canadian Canoe Museum — some as long as a transport trailer — are being moved from their previous location in a former outboard motor factory in Peterborough, Ont., to a new waterfront home three kilometres away.
Aug 9, 2023
The CBC last week reported that hundreds of canoes belonging to the Canadian Canoe Museum — some as long as a transport trailer — are being moved from their previous location in a former outboard motor factory in Peterborough, Ont., to a new waterfront home three kilometres away.
The Canadian Canoe Museum is a unique national heritage centre that explores the canoe’s enduring significance to the peoples of Canada, through an exceptional collection of canoes, kayaks and paddled watercraft. It features canoes used by many famous Canadians such as artist Robert Bateman, musician Gordon Lightfoot and former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
Founded on a collection of the late Professor Kirk Wipper, and established in Peterborough, Ontario, in 1997, the museum’s holdings now number more than 600 canoes, kayaks and paddled watercraft. Together they span the country from coast to coast to coast and represent many of the major watercraft traditions of Canada.
The museum has more than 600 paddled watercraft, but most are housed in a large old building that is off-limits to the public. Inside there are canoes and kayaks used by Olympians along with canoes used in the fur trade.
The new facility, now under construction on the waterfront of Little Lake, in the heart of Peterborough, Ont., will allow for all of the collection to be seen.
The museum’s artifacts range from the great dugouts of the First Nations of the Pacific Northwest to the singular bark canoes of the Beothuk of Newfoundland; from the skin-on-frame kayaks of northern peoples from Baffin Island in the east to the Mackenzie River Delta in the northwest to the all-wood and canvas-covered craft manufactured by companies with names like Herald, Peterborough, Chestnut, Lakefield and Canadian.
