In 1966, 10 year old Gordon Bowley was watching a TV program about Inuit hunters using kayaks. Never having seen such a watercraft before, he asked his father if they could build one. So his dad found an ad for kayak plans in a magazine and wrote off for them.
“I had a rowboat but I thought a kayak was a lot neater, a lot faster, and I could get around to more places to go fishing” says Gordon Bowley.
Construction began in the winter of 1966, using a plywood frame and cedar stringers, the entire thing covered with canvas and painted. Bowley has fond memories of himself, this father and his grandfather working together on the kayak in the basement.
“I do remember my dad and my grandpa and myself putting the canvas on” recalls Gordon Bowley
The kayak was launched in the summer of 1967 and Bowley says he quickly got a handle on how to paddle it.
It has been in use ever since by three generations of the Bowley family.