Kayak-building guide perfect for all boaters

Editor’s Note: Maine Bound is a column featuring new books written by Maine authors set in the Pine Tree State or with other local ties.

KAYAKS YOU CAN BUILD: AN ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO PLYWOOD CONSTRUCTION, by Ted Moores and Greg Rossel; Firefly Books, Buffalo, N.Y., 2004; 256 pages, hardback, $35.

If you like boats but never thought of building one, “Kayaks You Can Build” could put the bug in you. Greg Rossel of Troy and Ted Moores of Peterborough, Ontario, professional boat builders as well as authors, have assembled a well-illustrated, step-by-step guide that practically anybody, with the right tools, can follow.

The book gives a good introduction to the kayak’s origins among the Inuit of Arctic North America and the rise of its popularity among explorers, adventurers and finally the weekend bird-watcher in the 19th and 20th centuries. Then, in crisp, clean prose, the authors lead us through the construction process, from how (and why) to build a worktable, to what tools we will need, and the basic techniques of 12 clear-cut steps from joining planks to sanding and varnishing. The last chapter leads us through the building of three different kayaks from kits – the Coho, by Pygmy Boats; the Mill Creek Kayak, by Chesapeake Light Craft; and the Enterprise, by Moores’ Bear Mountain Boats.

Each step is covered in detail but not clutter; the writing is lucid, good-humored and easy to follow. The book’s glossy color photographs are tasteful and accurate to the instructions, and thoughtful inserted boxes titled, among others, “Cheap Trick” and “Think Lazy” give tips and explanations at every turn. It all seems so methodical and straightforward that even I, who have trouble lining up a saw blade, now think I might be able to make a kayak. Or at least paddle one.

Moores and Rossel are old hands at building and instruction. Both have been members of the faculty at the WoodenBoat School in Brooklin, and Moores’ books include “CanoeCraft” and “KayakCraft.” Rossel is the author of “Building Small Boats” as well as numerous articles on boat building. He keeps an active boat repair business in Troy.

– Dana Wilde

PEA SOUP FOG, by Connie Macdonald Smith, illustrated by Jen Cart, includes recipe, 32 pages, Down East Books, Camden, 2004, $15.95.

A shared secret between granddaughter and grandmother leads villagers in a small coastal community, which looks remarkably like many perched on Maine’s rocky shores, through a wonderful journey that ends in a shared meal of homemade pea soup.

The sharing extends to the reader through the pea soup recipe included at the end of the story.

Author Connie Macdonald Smith plays with the reader’s fanciful side as she prods imagination with each of the villager’s ideas of where the fog originates and where to look next. Smith strengthens the idea of community and how, if we depend on each other, we can find our way through the most perplexing of problems.

This idea is supported by Jen Cart’s illustrations, which are whimsical and colorful, and tell readers what words cannot about the people in the story and about the community’s character. The details in the illustrations are inviting and give the impression of the texture one feels in fog.

In “Pea Soup Fog,” the granddaughter brings attention to the fog and the cold by telling the truth: “‘It gets foggy when Grammy makes soup,’ said a tiny girl with goose bumps. But no one believed her. No one at all.”

That becomes the launching point for the entire village to look for the source of the fog. Readers visit the butcher, the baker and the candle maker, each of whom has his or her own idea about how to get rid of the fog. The granddaughter scores a donation of goods from each shop as the group moves along. The path eventually leads to the grandmother’s house, where everyone shares the soup flavored with the butcher’s bone, and eats the baker’s bread at the table lit by the candle from the candle shop.

When the soup is gone, everyone is warm and full. “‘Now we are warm,’ said the tiny girl after everyone had eaten. ‘We can go home and think how to get rid of this fog,’ she said with a wink at Grammy.” But when everyone steps outside, the fog is gone and the sun is out.

Good food, good company and a good book can cut through even the densest of fogs.

– Julie Murchison Harris