I have a weird love of wooden boats. Well, maybe not so weird. They are undeniably beautiful, especially when you can see the insides. The woodwork and all those pretty blonde ribs lined up next to one another are so pleasing to the eye.

I got to see quite a few wooden canoes at the seasonal opening celebration of the Wisconsin Canoe Heritage Museum in Spooner, Wisconsin, last weekend. I learned about the museum while I was at Canoecopia, the annual gathering of all things canoe-related in Madison, Wisconsin, in March. The museum exhibited several beautiful wooden canoes there, and I talked to a guy who was very happy to tell me everything he knew about the canoes and the museum. After talking with him, I felt I had to go to the museum opening on Memorial Day weekend.

I love the appearance of wooden canoes and the craft that goes into making them, but I’m not sure I could own one. If I had one, I’d wince whenever I dragged it across the bottom, even a little bit. Every time I stepped into it, smearing my muddy feet across the beautiful wooden bottom would probably make me cry a little. And I’d worry endlessly about hitting a rock and tearing a hole in it.

But when I saw they were raffling off two newly-built wooden canoes, I couldn’t resist buying a ticket. I sure hope I don’t win. If I do, I’ll have to go up there again, and I’ll have to take it to a calm lake to paddle it around, just once, and then I’ll bring it home and hang it from the rafters and just look at it, because of all the aforementioned worrying. No, I’m kidding. If I won it, I’d take it out on the water every week of every summer until I couldn’t hold a paddle, or until it was waterlogged and full of holes, whichever came first.

A few dozen wooden canoe owners brought their canoes (and a few boats) to the show, exhibiting them in the parking lot next to the museum. Some of the canoes were newly-made, some were old classics which had been restored. A few were very old and not yet restored. A lot of them were for sale. One of the old unrestored canoes wore a sign which said, “FREE to a good home.” So I could have gone home with a wooden canoe, but I wouldn’t have been able to paddle it until I learned how to restore a wooden canoe because, although it was mostly there, it was missing many key parts, and a lot of the parts it still had were rotten and needed to be torn out and replaced. I would need to learn how to build a wooden canoe, really.

The museum exhibits some beautiful wooden canoes, too, but I felt that the much more interesting half of the museum was the workshop where two guys were building a canoe the day I was there! I watched for about a half-hour as they pulled ribs out of a steam-filled box and bent them over a wooden form, then tack them in place. I could’ve watched them do that all afternoon, but I had other things in mind before I had to make the long drive home again.