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TRENT CONTENTS Association President's Message Making Waves: John Jennings and the Canadian Canoe Museum Physics 100: Swinging from the rafters Reunion Weekend Accommodation Directory Wilson's Wit and Wisdom: Alumni Coaches The Formal and Informal Classroom or, What Really Happens at Trent Unique Contribution to Archaeology Earns Spirit of Trent Award |
Jim Barber '87 "The Mounties have been given away to Hollywood and Disney. Our brand of hockey's been debased. The canoe is the closest thing we have to a national symbol," he said. The western historian who's been teaching at Trent since 1976 became a canoe convert shortly after setting down roots in the Peterborough area, and it's a passion that has actually pulled him away from the Trent campus for the past couple of years. In that time he's devoted his considerable energies, time and expertise to help create what is quickly becoming a popular tourist attraction and an even more important repository of Canadian culture and history - The Canadian Canoe Museum. The Canadian Canoe museum actually began as the dream of one man. Prof. Kirk Wipper. In the late 1950s, the University of Toronto professor began collecting canoes of all shapes, sizes, ages and cultural origins with the intent of founding a museum dedicated to the craft he and other historians such as Prof. Jennings, credit as being one of the most important factors in the creation of the nation that would become Canada. "I grew up in Calgary, so I spent about half my life in a city. I started becoming fascinated with the canoe and took my first canoe trips when I came to Trent and got involved with a small group of faculty who were passionate canoeists," he said. The group, at that time, included the likes of Bruce Hodgins, Gwyneth Hoyle, Dale Standen, Shelagh Grant '76, John Marsh and soon, relative canoe neophyte John Jennings. That group of Trent professors had begun a sort of canoe club, which turned into the first committee working towards bringing the canoes in Prof. Kirk Wipper's collection to Peterborough. "Actually, our first choice was on the main campus, but that didn't work out for a number of reasons," Prof. Jennings said. "The idea was born in 1982 and the group was actually a Presidential advisory committee started under Donald Theall, and continued when John Stubbs came on board. The board could never give us a definite answer, so that plan was shelved." The Canadian Canoe Museum, originally called the Kanawa International Museum, didn't open its doors until literally 40 years and many bumps in the proverbial road (or more appropriately, rapids in the river) later. "Prof. Wipper had a summer camp in Haliburton called Camp Kandalore, and he started to collect canoes as a bit of a hobby - and got carried away," Prof. Jennings said. More than 600 canoes were included in the collection that came into the possession of the first group of trustees of what would become the Canadian Canoe Museum. "We officially acquired the collection from Prof. Wipper in 1995, but up until that time we stored canoes in barns around the Peterborough area. We realized that a permanent site was needed." That site was almost found in 1990 when the city of Peterborough and the Otonabee Region Conservation Authority offered the trustees four acres of land on the Trent Severn Waterway, near Beavermead Park. That property is still owned by the museum. "That property was where we planned to build the museum but we needed to raise a lot of money for buildings," he explained. "We're still planning to use the property for some interactive educational opportunities where maybe people will be able to take canoes into the water." Plans for a boathouse, docks and interpretive centre are already in the works. After years of fund-raising, there was no real sign that a structure for the Canoe Museum was going to be built. Then, came a bad news/good news story. "Out of no where, Out board Marine Corporation, who had just shut down their factory in Peterborough, offered us all of their property - buildings included," Prof. Jennings said. They were being offered 300,000 to 400,000 square feet of space. They kept 100,000 of it for storage space and tore down the rest. Later on, the office complex for the plant was offered to the museum - and this area is now 40,000 square feet of office , gallery and educational space. There are also a number of rooms used by local community groups. "It cost us a dollar, and shortly after we made the purchase, the city council excused all municipal taxes on it." To Prof. Jennings, the term "canoe" means so much more than just the type of vessel used to ply the waterways of what would become Canada, in the centuries before Europeans defiled the pristine wilderness. "One of our mandates is to collect aboriginal craft from all over the world. Itís a pretty universal concept, although the designs were different. Every culture seems to have created some form of personal water craft, made out of wood or other natural materials, that they found would float, and that they could propel with a pole or a paddle," he explained. "The northern part of North America is the really the Mecca of the canoe. It's where the vessel we're all familiar with as a canoe was invented by the aboriginal people. Wherever birch trees grew, these vessels were created and if you were to draw a map of those areas, youíd really have a map of Canada." It was that natural birch bark canoe that was adapted by the European explorers and traders, particularly the voyageurs - the same voyageurs credited with 'discovering' and exploring what became Canada. The modern canoes, those made out of more solid woods, were invented, perfected and marketed in the Peterborough area in the 1850s, he added. The vision for the Canadian Museum, which Prof. Jennings played no small part in creating, was outlined in an Infrastructure Program Proposal drafted in March of 1997. It stated that the vision of the board of trustees, "is to celebrate one of Canada's most important symbols, one that encompasses the spirit of the nation - its history, the diversity of the country and its people and the special connection of Canadians to their land. The canoe can serve as a powerful emblem for Canada, giving strength to our future as it draws Canadians together in a shared sense of purpose and pride." Prof. Jennings says this rather sweeping objective will be met by not only making the Museum the largest storehouse of canoes and related water craft in the world (which it pretty much is already), but also by becoming a major centre of research and educational opportunities. The museum also has much to offer the city of Peterborough, once a centre of small water craft construction throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. The possibility of the Canadian Canoe Museum attracting tens of thousands of out of town visitors who will, no doubt, spend money, makes it yet another amenity the various local economic development officials will use to try and lure both tourism and industry. "I think we have the potential to bring as many as 150,000 visitors annually to Peterborough," Prof. Jennings said. "The biggest number will probably come from Toronto and the Golden Horseshoe, Kingston and Ottawa, as well as all the cottage areas in the summer, but we've already had a number of inquiries from the United States and Japan." He said European nations like Germany have developed a real fascination with the canoe and the museum fields calls from that locale. "If it also becomes known as a centre for academic study of aboriginal cultures or Canadian history or boat building, the possible economic spin offs from foreign visitors are astounding," he said. A tour of key aboriginal sites, with the locus being the canoe museum, is already in the works for this coming tourist season, Prof. Jennings added. Visitors will be able to take canoes and travel to Serpent Mounds, the Petro glyphs, the Whetung Gallery and then the Museum. "And that's just the beginning," he added. Not forgetting his Trent ties, Prof. Jennings wants stronger links with the school to be one of the museumís key objectives. "There's opportunity for all kinds of linkages with the Native Studies program, anthropology, history, Canadian Studies and the Frost Centre. Students will have access to some very special artifacts and expertise that no other university will have - and all in their back yard," he said. Speaking of Trent, Prof. Jennings said he will be returning to teaching in September of 1999, but will retain his involvement with the Canoe Museum. "I really missed being at Trent for the past couple of years. I missed teaching and I can't wait to get back up there. I figure I'll probably spend about 60 per cent of my time teaching and the rest working for the museum," he said. Besides being a great walking resource library for the museum, John Jennings has also become one of the Canadian Canoe Museumís best salesmen and fundraiser. "I think I've raised approximately $2 million over the past four or five years, which is pretty incredible considering I've never really been much of a pitch man. People just ask me to come and speak to them and then I walk out of the meeting with a cheque." That's putting it modestly. It's obvious that canoeing and its importance to Canada's history and culture is more than just an academic interest for Prof. Jennings. His passion and conviction may be the best sales tool the Museum or Trent University will ever have. | |
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