I spend a lot of time kayaking our waterways. I’m not alone out there but I hardly ever see canoes these days. There was a time, during Cape Arundel’s heyday, when owning a birch bark canoe made by Louis Francis was something to brag about. Canoes were status symbols and social conduits. On occasion, they even facilitated romance.

Long before Europeans arrived on our shores, indigenous people were building dugout canoes here. Cape Porpoise Archaeological Alliance excavated one from Stage Harbor flats in 2019 that was carbon dated to between 1276 and 1393 A.D. It is the oldest dugout canoe yet found in Maine.

Boatbuilder Cleveland Trott, from Woolwich Maine, capitalized on the growing demand for all kinds of pleasure boats in Kennebunkport starting in 1881. His boat shop was located behind the Parker House Hotel, but he rented out boats from a raft near today’s Boathouse Restaurant and from where the Kennebunk River Club would later stand.

David Heckman’s boat shop was near The Nonantum Resort. He was the son of Henry Heckman who had the Nonantum built in 1884. David Heckman’s work gained national acclaim with canoe aficionados in 1890.

John R. Williams, a canoe builder from Brownfield, Maine lived in the Lower Village and built canoes in Kennebunkport from 1897-1918. His 1905 boat house on wharf lane is now a private home. Jack owned that whole wharf for a time.

Louis Francis and Joseph Ranco, both Old Town Penobscot Indians, made birch bark canoes every summer at Indian Canoe Landing near Government Wharf starting in the 1880s. Ranco is credited with making the first canvas canoe. See his patent drawing. Passamaquoddy builder, P.J. Gabriel sold his canoes from tent #10 starting in 1891. Sabatis M. Frances made canoes here during the early 1900s. Kennebunkport was considered a canoe-making center.

Motorboats gained popularity by 1920 and demand for canoes declined to such a degree that all the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy canoe builders had ceased selling their boats here by 1927. Indian Canoe Landing was abandoned for a long time before it was finally torn down in 1936.