Academic Major: Archaeology
Advisor: Timothy Messner
Title: A Tale of Two Boats: The 21st-Century Craft of Building an Adirondack Guideboat
This project examines changing notions of “craftmanship” through analysis of contemporary Adirondack guideboat building. To do so, I conducted interviews with builders of different backgrounds. While the guideboat remains an incredibly valuable piece of history for the Adirondack region, the demand for guideboats built using traditional methods is dwindling while the industry of plank-built and fiber-glassed guideboats is growing in popularity. Here, I explore what exactly this means for both the future of craft and the encapsulating culture. The questions that I explore are as follows: Will the traditional methods continue to be actively used, or will they be replaced by newer methods and simply become a piece of the Adirondack guideboat’s history? How important and necessary is the building process to guideboat handling and aesthetics? Has salesmanship surpassed craftsmanship in the 21st century, and how will this situation influence the meaning of the guideboat within the Adirondack region?