Old Town Canoes Celebrates 125 Years

In 1857 Henry David Thoreau and a guide from New England’s Penobscot Nation, Joseph Polis, took a round-trip canoe journey from Bangor, Maine, to the Allagash Lakes. One of the things the two travelers discussed was the construction of their birch bark canoe, a type the Penobscot people had been making for centuries. Little did they know that their topic of conversation would eventually lead to the founding of America’s longest-lived watercraft manufacturer, Old Town Canoes.

It was that original Native American boat design that inspired a man by the name of A.E. Wickett when, in 1898, he started building a similar wood-and-canvas canoe as a side business for the Gray family out behind their hardware store in Old Town, Maine (a town that sits, fittingly enough, on the banks of the Penobscot River). Many of the company’s early employees were local Penobscot. “Back in the 1800s, when people were driving logs down the rivers, we didn’t have a road system,” said Ryan Lilly, Brand Evangelist at Johnson Outdoors, parent company of Old Town. “You got around on rivers in canoes or bateaus. Even today, everyone in Maine has a boat.”

By 1901 the Gray family had incorporated the business, which went by various names over the next few years before family finally settled on the name Old Town Canoe Company. It remained a family business until 1974, when Johnson Outdoors, a Racine, Wisconsin, firm (originally launched by the same family that founded consumer cleaning supply company S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc.,) added it to their portfolio. The parent company, now publicly traded, employs about 1,500 people and has annual sales of over $743 million from its outdoor gear brands, which also include names such as Eureka tents, Jetboil stoves, and Minn Kota trolling motors.

“When you think about 125 years, not many companies make it that long,” said Alex Sherbinow, Marketing Manager – Watercraft at Johnson Outdoors. “The reason Old Town has survived is that they’ve been constantly innovating. We’ve gone from wood and canvas to fiberglass to building the first motorized ocean kayaks and haven’t sacrificed the product quality. We’re avid users of our product, and our passion for the product shows. We make a boat for everyone, and we’re not going to stop innovating.”

Old Town focused exclusively on its wood-and-canvas canoes for decades, introducing a variety of styles for different sporting and pleasure boating pursuits. But in the mid-20^th century, competitors introduced aluminum and fiberglass canoes. “There was a huge post-war influence on the watercraft market,” said Lilly. “The types of boats ballooned out to include sailboats and motorboats, and the 1960s and 1970s brought new materials too.” The company eventually began exploring those new materials, including polyethylene and fiberglass–but not aluminum. “The owners refused to use aluminum,” Sherbinow explained. “They hated the way it looked and all the noise it makes.”

Old Town also branched out into kayaks, a move that would prove tremendously profitable. Legendary Old Town engineer Lew Gilman developed the kayaks under the tutelage of world-class canoe and kayak competitor Bart Hauthaway. Gilman, who worked with the company for decades, was also the inventor of the three-layer roto-molding process that’s still used to make polyethylene canoes and kayaks.

In recent years, Old Town has added more modern conveniences as well. Pairing up its Old Town and Minn Kota brands, Johnson rolled out basic motorized kayaks as well as lines featuring Minn Kota’s Spot Lock technology, which automatically holds its user’s position over the fishing hole.

“While fishing kayaks have been around for some time, the sport has exploded over the past 10 years and it’s no surprise that Old Town is leading the way in innovation and functionality,” said Thomas Allen, Digital Content Manager for In-Fisherman and Senior Editor for Kayak Fishing Fun magazines. “The best part is there’s a kayak for every preference. If you like to paddle, there’s a kayak for that, if you like to pedal, there’s a kayak for that, if you want power and a trolling motor, there’s a kayak for that—all within Old Town’s Sportsman lineup. On top of that, you can fully rig your kayak to suit your fishing desires, and that’s a big part of the fun. Old Town offers the platform to get you there and back, from there it’s up to you to create the fishing kayak of your dreams.”

Today, sadly, Old Town no longer offers a wood-and-canvas canoe. Time marches on, after all. “All our boats are made of polyethylene plastic,” Sherbinow said. But contrary to what you might see online, he also added, “All our boats are made in Old Town, Maine.” That includes not just the boats of the Old Town line, but those of Johnson’s Ocean Kayak line as well. “Johnson Outdoors still keeps its production there and supports who this brand is. The company values run in parallel.”

“We employ 150 people out of this facility,” said Lilly of the 98,000 square foot Old Town factory. “What I’m proud of is our workforce. We have a number of employees who are part of a multi-generational family of Old Town workers. There’s a lot of pride in what we do, and a lot of craftsmanship and innovation.”

To mark its 125^th anniversary, Old Town is offering limited editions of three of its kayak models in a custom Gray Ghost colorway, a tip of the hat to the founding Gray family. It also shares its name with the Gray Ghost Streamer fly pattern first tied in 1924 by beloved Maine commercial fly tyer Carrie Stevens. “It’s more than just a color,” said Sherbinow. “It’s a nod to the heritage and to Maine craftsmanship.”