Making a Wild Dream Come True at Adirondack Folk School

By Kathleen Fagan

If you’ve ever pictured yourself paddling on our Adirondack waters, accompanied by swaying branches, darting fish and birdsong, you may have already acted on that dream and purchased your own canoe or rented one on occasion. Kudos for making that happen! If that dream is still unrealized, and especially if it’s lived alongside the one where you give up your 9-5 gig to start creating things – to feel the accomplishment of producing a finished work of art – then have I got an idea for you.

I moved permanently to Bolton Landing in December of 2020 and quickly immersed myself in all things Adirondack. Part of that immersion process was picking back up with a novel I’d started writing several years ago. Canoes are part of the narrative, so one day in February of 2021 it dawned on me that it might be fun and instructive to learn how to make one. The idea captivated me immediately so, of course, I googled. Yes, there were canoe-building courses all over the place – in Michigan and Maine (and Sweden!) where you could learn the craft but not necessarily take a finished canoe home with you. One of the links further down the results page led me to the Adirondack Folk School in Lake Luzerne, only a few miles from where I live. I had never heard of it. The link led to a page about their canoe-building course. I had been willing to travel (maybe not to Europe), but this opportunity was in my backyard. Serendipity.

I poked around and saw that a variety of courses were available, but at that point I was laser-focused. Build a Wee Lassie Canoe is AFS’s flagship course, and the design is based on the light canoe constructed in the late 19th century by legendary Adirondack boat builder Henry Rushton. The course meets for a full 11 days, at the end of which its four students go home with their own unique versions of Adirondack history that will be in their families for generations. It’s a time commitment not everyone can make, but as a recent retiree I was lucky to be able to accommodate that schedule.

Just a few days before I started the class last September, I rewatched The Last of the Mohicans and immediately afterwards went down a Daniel Day-Lewis rabbit hole. Yes, Google is my friend. To my amazement, I found out that the famous (some would say insane) method actor made the most method-acting move of them all, and built his own canoe before taking on the role of Hawkeye. But I wasn’t crazy, was I? The answer turned out to be a resounding no. From picking out the cedar strips that caught my eye until I strapped my beauty to the top of my Mini Cooper Countryman two weeks later, I learned more than I thought possible about art and woodworking and mistakes and teamwork.

It’s impossible to discuss the AFS canoe course without first talking about its instructor, Larry Benjamin. He’s been with the school since its founding in 2010, and came to the course with 15 years of teaching and curriculum development experience, having created certificate programs for a variety of trades from cabling to fiber optics. (When you take the canoe course, you must also ask for the story about his job as an EMT in Alaska. It won’t disappoint.)

What does Larry enjoy most about teaching the course? “It’s the interaction with the students and the never-ending problem solving.” His Zen demeanor and standard “IDM” answer, when a student fears that a sawing error or epoxy disaster means their canoe is doomed, gradually calms woodworking beginners down. IDM is “It Doesn’t Matter” and the lesson finally sinks in that virtually anything can be fixed.

Larry’s grace and humor is accompanied by a drive to make the canoes and the course experience better and better each year. My class benefitted from the tweaking of the previous classes, which meant the forms we used had been refined, the bulkhead-building process improved, and elegant copper tubing was now beautifully situated at bow and stern. And our class likewise paid it forward. 

Progress also came with finding the best home for the canoe class specifically, with its need to accommodate not only the process, but the bulk of the forms, materials and tools. It started outside under tents at the Folk School, with inclement weather a hindrance to drying epoxy. From there, the canoe class moved to a dude ranch, a music school and a shirt factory, until finding its perfect current home at the Lake George Outlets.

Steve Fisk, Larry’s assistant, first took the course in 2016 and has built three canoes since, determined that each of his grandchildren will have their own Wee Lassie. His favorite element of the course is the teamwork that is so critical to success. From the initial loading, gluing and tightening down of the bead-and-cove cedar strips, to the forming of the bow and stern, to the epoxy stages at the end, each individual canoe had moments that called for all-hands-on-deck.

Larry assured us on the first day when we chose our cedar strips, the ones whose tone and markings spoke to us and would make our canoes unique, that we would each leave with a work of art. And we did… along with the memories and pride (and fatigue) of having created such a masterpiece with our own hands. And the bulkheads I mentioned earlier? We used the bow one to create our own personal time capsules, mementos sealed and waterproofed within the canoe that will accompany us on all our paddling adventures. 

Final canoe note: I got the snazziest stripe at the bottom of my hull. Why? Because I made a big mistake and cut the final regular cedar strip too wide so that the darker sapele cedar strip placed at the bottom wouldn’t cover the gaping hole. Now I have a wider-than-normal two-tone racing stripe and a much better appreciation of how mistakes can be transformed into beauty. The ultimate IDM!

I was unfamiliar with AFS until my Google search and if you are too, here is its mission statement: The Adirondack Folk School celebrates and preserves the cultural heritage of the Adirondacks and promotes creativity and self-reliance by teaching the arts, crafts and traditions that define our legendary region.

What’s not to love? For 2022, that mission will be fulfilled by 281 offerings of 151 different courses, all taught by instructors like Larry Benjamin with immense expertise and passion for their craft. Courses range from basketry and blacksmithing to woodturning and woodworking and the rest of the alphabetized crafts in between. You might not know that you want to make soap or learn wildlife photography or understand the cheese-making process until you see an opportunity in the AFS catalog. 

Have you always doubted your ability to create something beautiful? The Adirondack Folk School is here to tell you otherwise. You probably won’t be able to give up that day job and the canoe may have to wait. But that dream of becoming a maker, an artisan? It’s right here within your grasp in our own iconic Adirondack region. 

Visit the Adirondack Folk School’s main location and its gift shop at 51 Main Street in Lake Luzerne. Check out the website and course catalog at adirondackfolkschool.org.

Kathleen Fagan (kcfagan1@gmail.com) grew up in Rhode Island, raised her family in Niskayuna and moved permanently to Bolton Landing a year ago – where she’s now living the Adirondack dream she shared with her late husband, Chris.