Reid's Cedar Rib Canoe

Building a Dream.

Reid McLachlan saw his first cedar-rib canoe over forty years ago at his future father-in-law, Bill Mason's house where it had been rescued from its life as a planter. Reid has been obsessed with them ever since.

Learn More

“Like witnessing a bumblebee flying about, unaware of the alleged impossibility of this feat, I’m pretty sure that the Cedar Rib canoe cannot actually be built, except on paper”. Jeremy Ward, Curator, Canadian Canoe Museum. 

In 1948 the Peterborough Canoe Company dragged two elderly workers out of retirement and made them build a cedar-rib canoe for the city of Peterborough to present to Queen Elizabeth II on the occasion of her wedding. When those two men finished the canoe they destroyed all of the forms and jigs so nobody would ever have to build another one. And no one ever has. Until now.

Invented and patented by John Stephenson in 1879 and later offered by the Peterborough Canoe Company starting in 1893 the cedar-rib canoe was the finest and most expensive canoe that they sold. It was also the most difficult to build. Whenever an order was received a mysterious flu would appear causing workers to call in sick, or so the story goes.

Reid McLachlan saw his first cedar-rib canoe over forty years ago at his future father-in-law's house where it had been rescued from its life as a planter. He's been obsessed with them ever since.

Reid's journey from fixing and then getting married in that first canoe to acquiring and restoring a second one, and then researching, planning, constructing and finally launching the first cedar-rib canoe that has been built in 78 years is an amazing story of determination and obsession. If you want to learn more about Reid realizing a dream that's been four decades in the making you can read more in the Summer 2026 issue of Wooden Canoe and the Spring 2026 issue of Paddling Magazine and you can see him and the canoe in person on June 20  at OSCR in Peterborough and there are plans for him to give a talk at the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough in November 2026.