The Light McKenzie River Boat, as it is traditionally known, is described in detail in Roger Fletcher’s book “Drift Boats and River Dories”, published by Stackpole Books in 2007. The book’s ISBN is 0-8117-0234-0 . Roger Flectcher’s website is www.riverstouch.com .
The McKenzie river flows west out of the Cascades Mountains in central Oregon and terminates north of Eugene Oregon when it joins the Willamette River.
The Light McKenzie River boat is thought to have been first developed in the 1920’s by Veltie Pruitt for use on the McKenzie River.
This boat was built at the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding by students in the Class of 2014 working under the direction of instructor Ben Kahn. It was built largely of Alaska Yellow Cedar. The oars are spruce.
It’s seen here on sea trials March 5th, 2014, demonstrating its manueverability during sea trials.
The Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding is located in Port Hadlock WA and is an accredited, non-profit vocational school. You can find us on the web at www.nwswb.edu .
Our mission is to teach and preserve the fine art of wooden boatbuilding and traditional maritime crafts.
We build both commissioned and speculative boats while teaching adult students the traditional wood and wood composite boatbuilding skills they will need to work in the marine trades. We sell our boats to help support the School. Please feel free to give us a call should you like to discuss our building a boat for you.
You can reach us via e-mail at [email protected] or by calling us at 360-385-4948.
