John Lloyd grew up in a canoe. His first memory, he says, is of standing on tiptoes to peer over the side of the family’s 1937 Skowhegan to watch a toy boat trailing behind on a string. Over time, John grew from passenger to paddler and the canoe became his. For the next 65 years he used it regularly on waterways around New York and the Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario. But when John and his wife could no longer easily carry the Skowhegan, they passed it on to a couple with young children. John began the search for a boat he and his wife could “pick up and portage and afford.”John built his first boat, Percy Blandford’s PBK 26, a skin-on-frame kayak, when he was 16. He built two more for friends. Much later, in 1999, on leaving a career in construction, he retrained as a teacher and began working in an alternative high school for students with severe learning disabilities. He brought his love of canoes and boatbuilding into the classroom where, along with an English teacher, John taught a year-long course in which students alternated between maritime literature and project-based learning—and two more PBK 26s were built.
Photographs by John LloydBuilt to his own design, but reminiscent of a wide-bottomed Adirondack Guideboat, John did not regard BELUGA as a total success. Nevertheless she continues to be used by friends in upstate New York.
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Great article. I enjoy seeing the different construction techniques presented in the magazine.
Really, really love skin-on-frame content!