Shiny Chapter In Canoeing About To Come To A Close

The era of the nation’s most durable canoes appears to be over.

The last Grumman aluminum canoe was built June 27 in a plant in Marathon, N.Y. The Grumman Corp., now owned by the Outboard Marine Corp (makers of Johnson and Evinrude outboards among other marine products), has decided to clos Grumman. The canoe maker reportedly had not been profitable for the past few years.

In its heyday, tens of thousands of Grummans were sold each year, according to Greg Harvey, the company’s sales manager.

Grummans were first made in 1945 by the Grumman Corp., which had built aluminum aircraft for the military in World War II. The aluminum canoe market boomed in the 1970s when young Americans took to the woods. But in the past 10 to 15 years, the canoe market has been fragmented among canoes made of many other materials - polyethylene, Fiberglas, Kevlar, Royalex and Royalight.

“There are a lot more slices of the pie,” Harvey said.

Last year, he said, only about 3,000 Grummans were sold.

But there will be Grummans in use and on canoe racks for decades to come.

“Best canoe made,” said Minnesota canoe outfitter Cliff Wold Sr., who has been using Grummans every year for 37 years. His outfitting business provides customers with 17-foot, 68-pound “livery lightweights.” Just this past spring, Wold ordered 32 more Grummans.

Grummans have always been built in a few basic models: 17-footers, 15-footers and 13-footers. They were built as conventional canoes and as square-sterns, in standard-weight and lightweight models. The Grumman Sportboat, a 15-foot, 112-pound car-top boat, was also popular.

Grummans are strong and light. They’re not nearly as fast as some of the more streamlined canoes made today, but they are stable and could carry a load. Aluminum canoes, many of them Grummans, are still the most popular craft in canoe country.

While ultra-lightweight Kevlar canoes sell for $1,300 or more, Grummans still sold for $600 to $700.

But Grummans came in only one color - the silver-gray of aluminum - while newer canoes came in handsome colors. And although Kevlar canoes have to be babied in the rocky North Country, they are so light and streamlined that many paddlers preferred them to aluminum canoes.

There’s only a strand of hope for Grumman aficionados. The 27 employees of Grumman are negotiating with their parent company for the rights to continue producing the Grumman under a different name.