Lake Superior Journal: Building Skiffs, Crafting a Life

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Glenn Lind Collection

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The family ready for a ride in the boat BlueFin, built by Glenn with his dad Hokan Lind.

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Glenn, 83, grew up in Castle Danger, Minnesota, and learned boat building from his father.

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Glenn Lind Collection

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The author and his dad with some good catches near Lake Superior.

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I grew up in the fishing village of Castle Danger, Minnesota, in the 1930s and first fell in love at the tender age of 6.

Since my dad, Hokan “Hokie” Lind, was a well-known fisherman in our town, perhaps my love interest was not so strange. You see, I fell in love with boats.

In my family, we used boats and we made them. I grew up watching Dad use his imagination, his hands and his many skills to turn wood into sturdy, hard-working skiffs. It became a labor of love for both of us.

Dad designed his boat frames – he did not have a so-called model to help him – and every piece of wood was measured and cut to perfection.

About the only thing Dad did not do in the boat-building process was to cut the trees. He bought white pine logs from a local logger in Crow Creek and cut them into boards in our mill house with the great saw inside. The mill house, located in Castle Danger, was also used to construct fish-holding boxes for commercial fishermen during the busy summer months. In winter, he built skiffs there.

As a youngster, I’d observe Dad for hours, in awe as he constructed the skiffs. I wanted to be a part of it. Taking hold of the freshly cut wooden planks, I’d help him to shape them onto the boat frame. Each plank was individually nailed in place, starting with the center bottom plank and working our way out to the sides.

We hand-painted each skiff and that helped to seal the planks. It was critical that there be no cracks in the planks. Any cracks meant serious problems – the skiff could sink or might not steer properly and then we’d have a “cranky” boat. No one, I learned young, wants a cranky boat.

We were designing the perfect skiffs to meet what was then a high fishing demand on the fickle Lake Superior. Our boats featured a carefully designed bow that would glide through the waves and a wide aft (back) to provide the much needed extra room for successful fishing days. Start to finish, each skiff took about 40 days to build and sold for $200.

“A good boat speaks for itself,” Dad would always say.

We were especially proud to see our skiffs return from the Lake filled with bluefin herring.

The 1930s were long before the coming of public docks. After a long day of fishing, we’d carefully pull our skiff up on shore, using a slide, being careful not to scratch the wood. During bad weather, we turned the boats upside down on shore to protect them.

While I loved all of the boats we made, I especially remember two.

In 1939, we built the BlueFin, named after the herring. BlueFin was a slow boat, built and used for family entertainment. Uncle Mark Lind bought it and added a cabin on it so he could use it for commercial fishing. Few commercial fishermen at the time could afford to just fish. Some rented rooms or cabins to tourists. Uncle Mark used the BlueFin to take paid passengers out for trolling and fishing.

In 1947, a commercial fisherman by the name of Stanley Sivertson was so impressed by the boats he’d seen my dad and me build that he asked us to make him a 24-foot boat to use at Isle Royale.

This made us proud; the Sivertson family is a well-known, well-respected fishing family to this day.

So we constructed the Sivie for Stanley, and he used it for many years until it was laid to rest at the Washington Harbor at Isle Royale, open to the elements to weather away as befits an honorable boat.

What was possible in the 1930s might not be so today, and there is a big difference between our boats and the boats made in this century.

Most boats today are made in large factories by machines, formed of fiberglass and sold with a factory guarantee. Our boats were made by individuals in mill houses or garages, crafted from handcut wood and sold, always, with a personal guarantee … from a builder you knew by name.

As I look back on my long life, I believe among my most precious blessings has been the opportunity to make skiffs out of wood with my hands, to work beside my dad and to fish with him on Lake Superior.

Building the perfect skiff required patience, detail and precision – valuable life skills. Like the sturdy skiff, I try to glide in whatever waters I encounter, to endure and to never give up. It’s just as Dad taught me: You need to have a goal in life, and then build the perfect skiff to reach it.

Glenn Lind grew up by Lake Superior. After serving in the U.S. Army, he returned and married Barbara Paquin. They had three children – Sandra, Carol and David – in Duluth. After attending Dunwoody College of Technology, Glenn was hired at the University of Minnesota as a machinist and worked with students and professors specializing in astronomy and physics. He retired after 27 years and now, at 83, has gone back to boatbuilding – though in the form of wooden boat models. Glenn and Barb live in Plymouth, Minnesota.