Birchcanoes

Canoe building holidays. Stay in one of our home made cabins for the most memorable family holiday Build your own wooden canoe in our riverside workshop.

We provide the plans, the tools, the materials, the instruction and the practical help to enable you to build your own canoe you will be so proud of.

08/06/2026

A recent canoe building couple brought me a painting that she had done here years ago when she used to visit our place with her daughter.
It's a sweet story because she had prints done of this painting which sold well. And one chap who bought one of the prints later became her partner..
I have just had the painting framed and yesterday I put it up in the River Cabin where my canoe building guests stay.
I am over the moon!

05/05/2026

Just spent a lovely Bank Holiday weekend building a second canoe with a family who built their first canoe 11 years ago. They wanted to do another one so their children could be involved in the process..

21/04/2026

Delighted and relieved.. my normal supplier of marine ply for the canoes was struggling to locate the right quality so I used all available resources to search for a new supplier. Found a very helpful supplier who was able to reassure me regarding the quality I require. I made a big order and the delivery came earlier than expected..

But I was especially delighted that the quality is exactly what I was looking for. The figure ( the grain) is glorious and the outer plies are beautifully thick which makes it so much easier to get everything looking good.

I will soon be posting more pictures of the plywood and the canoes built from it.

Apparently the disruption to shipping has affected all sorts of supplies not just oil from the gulf..some serious misery being inflicted in west Asia

But for now we have lovely marineply!

29/03/2026

Building your own canoe here at Birchcanoes is a unique experience.. and not for everyone.
I have kept in touch with many past canoe builders over the years and realise more and more how unique these people are.. they are the sort of people who have done lots of other extraordinary things.. they have travelled widely to places most of us never visit. A significant proportion have spent time in the Sahara, for example, the Himalaya, the South American rainforest etc.
In all the years ( since 1993) I have been canoe building we have only built 283 canoes..so it's a particularly rare choice of activity.
On a number of significant occasions we have had the same people back to build a second canoe. That's very special.
Here are some photos of a recent build. But don't feel you need to be a bloke of a certain age.. you can be any age and gender. You can come alone or with friends or family. You can get the whole process completed in a single long weekend, or take a week. You can travel in daily or stay in one of our quirky snug cabins.
Let me know if you are interested in booking with us. We actually do have some availability for the 2026 season but significantly more for Spring and Summer 2027...

26/03/2026

Another enjoyable week working with a client Mick on his canoe, this time an Ojibwe ( my version of the Stanley Smallcraft Peasemarsh 14.
We should be able to finish this canoe tomorrow morning.

25/03/2026

After a very wet winter it is lovely to be able to get the canoes back on the river. Last weekend we launched Swallow, which Simon built with us last month but couldn't launch until now.. his smiles show ho delighted he was..

11/03/2026

Behind the scenes..

You have probably heard people describe how busy they are like a swan, serene on the surface while paddling like mad under the water..

Well I can't make any claims about serenity but these are some photos of behind the scenes at Birchcanoes. Our canoes have beautiful gunwales made of ash which we glue and screw along the sheerline.

It's extremely difficult to get hold of knot free ash which is 5 metres or more in length, from which to make the gunwales. So I often resort to scarf joints. Yesterday I took advantage of a quiet day in the workshop to cut a huge and expensive piece of beautifully knot free ash into 18mm x 18mm strips which I then scarfed together. The aim is to make a strong and invisible joint.

Next time you see a Birchcanoes canoe, examine the gunwales. Can you spot if they were scarf jointed..or not?

20/02/2026

Just spent a very pleasant week building the first Lakota of the 2026 season, boat number 282, with Simon. He camped here about 8 years ago with his boys and tried the canoes.. and 8 years later he came back to build his own. Enjoy the photos in no particular order...

10/02/2026

Ok so it doesn't look anything like me.. but it's based on a photo of me taken "some years ago" by Rob Wild the famous photographer..Chat GPT has made me look friendly anyway!

14/01/2026

Here we see a 3rd generation boat builder learning the ropes! That's my son and grandson. My son has made countless canoes and other boats with me. This is my grandson's first canoe. He has made a grand job!
We are quickly getting booked up for the 2026 season. Half of the scheduled dates are now filled.
However we still have availability for the Late May Bank Holiday and for the second week of July.
In addition to the scheduled dates we are able to put on canoe building at other times. If you don't require accommodation, we can be most flexible.
Let me know if you have specific dates you have in mind and I can let you know a) whether we can offer canoe building and b) whether we can offer accommodation.
My email address is [email protected] and my WhatsApp number is 07922 164061.
I look forward to hearing from you

Address

Brooksby Station House Hoby Road, Brooksby
Melton Mowbray
LE142LE

Website

http://www.birchcanoes.com/

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