Handliner gathering at Shack Island
Derek Kilbourn
derek@soundernews.com
Tuesday, June 30 2009
Gabriolan Colin Masson was among a dozen handliner enthusiasts who met up last weekend at Shack Island, after rowing from the Sunshine Coast to Pilot Bay on Gabriola. The group left the Sunshine Coast on Saturday morning and arrived in Pilot Bay around 3pm leaving the next morning for Piper’s Lagoon. Colin was rowing his original Luoma-built handliner, the Bus Bailey, named after the original owner who lived and worked off of Shack Island back in the 30s and 40s.
Colin said one of the more interesting parts of the rendezvous was meeting all the different people who showed up at the gathering at Piper’s Lagoon.
“There were lots of folks who knew the guy who my boat’s named after. They knew Bus Bailey himself. It’s almost like living local history. There was one elderly woman who came over to me, next to the boat, she said she was friends with Bus, that he rowed her around the bay in this boat.”
Colin commutes as often as possible in the Bus to his job at the Pacific Biological Station in Departure Bay.
“It’s only five nautical miles for a raven travelling, but more for me as the tide pushes me across the channels emptying into the Strait of Georgia from the inside waters between Gabriola and Nanaimo harbour.”
“The boats are famous locally - I think people are attracted to them. For a while, in the 30s and 40s, they were part of a common theme - even after they weren’t used for fishing there were still a lot of people out using them.”
His particular handliner was built in 1937 on Shack Island by the Luoma brothers, who used salvaged logs. The ribs are said to be cutoffs from a salvaged oak bar from Nanaimo’s Queen’s Hotel. Part of the Bus’ history is Bus Bailey paid $20 in 1937 to the brothers for a “fully-outfitted boat with a pair of fine spooned oars of tight-grained, old-growth fir and an oak dry-ass (sic) seat.”
Various boatbuilders up and down the Georgia Strait had their own style of handliners. Colin said, “These [Luomas’] were considered some of the nicest - they row well.
“In my mind, they are often just right for the conditions around here. They work away over the waves just right. It’s a fairly fast rowboat, despite not being light, and they do row well. And the boats have local history, and are pleasing to the eye. I think that’s what makes them attractive.”
Another rower, Larry Westlake, brought over a careful replica, named Anna, of a handliner built on the Sunshine Coast. The style was similar but different, more raised in the bow and stern. Larry built it in 2005 for the Handliner Migration from Gibsons to Lund.
Of the dozen handliners that made the trip last weekend, Colin said some were newly-made fibreglass replicas of the Luoma boats.
“The nephew of Bus Bailey has made several replicas and done a lovely job as well. There is some debate about which boats row better.
“I, of course, like the original - but I acknowledge his boat is a fine looking boat.”
Colin said the boats are a living part of the history here. “They were built in response to the people who were using them all the time. The Luoma brothers lived and built their boats on the island. Many of the rowers, the fishermen there, Bus Bailey himself - he had a shack on Shack Island -- they lived there.
“On Sunday we were able to get a photo of me in front of Bus Bailey’s shack. That to me was a real highlight. That’s one aspect of rowing around that area - Bus Bailey would have been fishing for salmon in the same area that I’m rowing to work. It’s not the first time this boat has seen that particular tide ripe or these wind conditions - the boat knows the way.
“It’s fun.”
As mentioned above, Colin uses the Bailey to get to work in Nanaimo, at least during the summer months while there is enough light.
“I can usually get five months out of it. My last rowing day was the first or second of November. I work out of the office by the biology station for Fisheries and Oceans. On a good week I might get three days of rowing in, depends on the week. It’s a great commute - great to spend time on the water, all the things that are going on every day, slightly different. It’s a bit of exercise, but that’s not the whole point. The point is to be able to spend as much time on the water as possible. Get to know the conditions, be in touch with the marine world.
“Rowing on the swells from the northwest wind - it’s like an undiscovered sport. You get surfing off the top of the waves, moving along like that. People have no idea how much fun it is. If more people did I think there would be more people spending more time in these boats.”
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