Greg Tatman Wooden Boats
2255 Nugget Way
Springfield, Oregon 97403
Email: gregboats@me.com
Below: My son Andy and me in my Woodie Hindman boat, over 30 years ago.
A Wooden McKenzie River Driftboat,
at its best when it feels like you are in a boat,
floating on water that is only barely seen.
Stillness,
watching clean round rocks
on the river bottom
seem to swiftly move up river.
Sure, these things were built to run the same river as Oregon’s Salmon, Steelhead and Trout. Anglers invented them in the mid twentieth century in Springfield, Oregon, where lumber and plywood mills were king. Fisherman-mill workers brought lumber and plywood home from work and made boats that could get them connected to spots in the river where waders couldn’t go. They would build into the night to get their boats completed, so they could fish ‘til the sun sank into the Douglas Fir covered mountains. No one had plans, really. Only jigs and templates of the first boat they built. This is the definition of “folk art.” These boats had no real link to boats made elsewhere. Their builders, for example, didn’t use romantic language for the part and pieces. An angler would be heard to say “it’s a good boat,” rather than “she’s a good boat.”
I first heard of fishing the McKenzie River when I was a kid, at the neighbor’s house sitting with old Bill Gay, a long retired railroad detective, on his big front porch. He and Dad would share a tad of whisky. Bill would smoke a cigar. It was there I first heard of the McKenzie River and its famous fishing. Mr. Gay told us of the McKenzie Boat Parade too, the annual April event whose participants often drank much more than a “tad” of their favorite libation. Every year or so someone would drown. The Sheriff (or the State Police?) finally shut it down. When I first saw its unsanctioned version the next year, I visualized a young Mr. Gay, fly rod in hand, decades before. On a river, one never steps into the same river twice, yet I felt the presence of the water as if it was the same clear liquid, hosting a fly.
Remember film; “A River Runs Through It.” It is also a book. The father in the story is a Presbyterian Minister. I sold my boat building business in 2006, in order to enter a Presbyterian Seminary in Austin, Texas. Texas is clearly a different ‘movie’ than Oregon. Nor is it Montana, where I was born. So, in any case, strictly speaking I am still a “Reverend.” That career was altered by Parkinson’s, though I still do some fill-in preaching, and I do an inmate grief group in an Oregon prison twice a month. Inter mixed into the person I am continued to be wooden boat building. It continues to be a spiritual practice.
So, in the Spring of last year, I bought my old business back. My wife Judy supported the move as did all my close friends. So I did it! I currently live in West Linn, Oregon, yet in two or three months I hope to have the shop all geared up and ready to go in the little community of Glenwood, that lies between Eugene and Springfield. My plan isn’t to mass produce boat kits, or boats for that matter. My goal at this time of my life is to only do the things (in the boat business) that give me joy. I have two 16 1/2’ boats mostly cut out, ready to assemble in to a completed boat, one at a time. Each will be offered for sale as it is completed.
I want to finish this long tome with a story. Sometime in the middle 80’s, I bought an old ‘Woodie Hindman’ driftboat from a man who had purchased it from Woody himself in 1951. Legend has Woodie as the progenitor of this style of boat. It was in great shape. All it needed was stripping varnish and re-finishing, which I did. Well...they say that the leading cause of divorce is marriage. I think it might be boats, at least in my case. When I divorced, I needed some fast cash, so away went my precious old wooden boat, my Woodie Hindman.
I followed it for a while. I heard it had been left outside. My heart ached. I eventually lost track of it. I did keep the thin shafted old oars, and all these years used them whenever I’m on the river. I rowed Judy over the 'Pickett Fence' in 'Blossom Bar' rapid on the wild and scenic section of the Rogue River Canyon with those oars. You can see them in the photo at the top of this page, with me at those sixty seven year old oars.
The other day, for no particular reason than boredom, I visited the site "WoodenBoatPeople," poking around the articles and blogs. I noticed an old ad offering a Woody Hindman drift boat for sale. I thought; "I wonder if he still has it?"
The short story is that he did still have it, stored away in his garage. I made him an offer. He accepted it. All along, I had it in my mind, the question; "Is this boat my old Woodie Hindman I sold over thirty years ago? When Dave, the owner pulled up to the shop, pulling an old wooden boat, I did the 'lean over to look inside' inspection thing. Instantly I said, "THIS is my old boat!
What a joy it was to be re-united with an old friend. The oars, the boat and me, together again, ready for another day on the river.
Amen
at its best when it feels like you are in a boat,
floating on water that is only barely seen.
Stillness,
watching clean round rocks
on the river bottom
seem to swiftly move up river.
Sure, these things were built to run the same river as Oregon’s Salmon, Steelhead and Trout. Anglers invented them in the mid twentieth century in Springfield, Oregon, where lumber and plywood mills were king. Fisherman-mill workers brought lumber and plywood home from work and made boats that could get them connected to spots in the river where waders couldn’t go. They would build into the night to get their boats completed, so they could fish ‘til the sun sank into the Douglas Fir covered mountains. No one had plans, really. Only jigs and templates of the first boat they built. This is the definition of “folk art.” These boats had no real link to boats made elsewhere. Their builders, for example, didn’t use romantic language for the part and pieces. An angler would be heard to say “it’s a good boat,” rather than “she’s a good boat.”
I first heard of fishing the McKenzie River when I was a kid, at the neighbor’s house sitting with old Bill Gay, a long retired railroad detective, on his big front porch. He and Dad would share a tad of whisky. Bill would smoke a cigar. It was there I first heard of the McKenzie River and its famous fishing. Mr. Gay told us of the McKenzie Boat Parade too, the annual April event whose participants often drank much more than a “tad” of their favorite libation. Every year or so someone would drown. The Sheriff (or the State Police?) finally shut it down. When I first saw its unsanctioned version the next year, I visualized a young Mr. Gay, fly rod in hand, decades before. On a river, one never steps into the same river twice, yet I felt the presence of the water as if it was the same clear liquid, hosting a fly.
Remember film; “A River Runs Through It.” It is also a book. The father in the story is a Presbyterian Minister. I sold my boat building business in 2006, in order to enter a Presbyterian Seminary in Austin, Texas. Texas is clearly a different ‘movie’ than Oregon. Nor is it Montana, where I was born. So, in any case, strictly speaking I am still a “Reverend.” That career was altered by Parkinson’s, though I still do some fill-in preaching, and I do an inmate grief group in an Oregon prison twice a month. Inter mixed into the person I am continued to be wooden boat building. It continues to be a spiritual practice.
So, in the Spring of last year, I bought my old business back. My wife Judy supported the move as did all my close friends. So I did it! I currently live in West Linn, Oregon, yet in two or three months I hope to have the shop all geared up and ready to go in the little community of Glenwood, that lies between Eugene and Springfield. My plan isn’t to mass produce boat kits, or boats for that matter. My goal at this time of my life is to only do the things (in the boat business) that give me joy. I have two 16 1/2’ boats mostly cut out, ready to assemble in to a completed boat, one at a time. Each will be offered for sale as it is completed.
I want to finish this long tome with a story. Sometime in the middle 80’s, I bought an old ‘Woodie Hindman’ driftboat from a man who had purchased it from Woody himself in 1951. Legend has Woodie as the progenitor of this style of boat. It was in great shape. All it needed was stripping varnish and re-finishing, which I did. Well...they say that the leading cause of divorce is marriage. I think it might be boats, at least in my case. When I divorced, I needed some fast cash, so away went my precious old wooden boat, my Woodie Hindman.
I followed it for a while. I heard it had been left outside. My heart ached. I eventually lost track of it. I did keep the thin shafted old oars, and all these years used them whenever I’m on the river. I rowed Judy over the 'Pickett Fence' in 'Blossom Bar' rapid on the wild and scenic section of the Rogue River Canyon with those oars. You can see them in the photo at the top of this page, with me at those sixty seven year old oars.
The other day, for no particular reason than boredom, I visited the site "WoodenBoatPeople," poking around the articles and blogs. I noticed an old ad offering a Woody Hindman drift boat for sale. I thought; "I wonder if he still has it?"
The short story is that he did still have it, stored away in his garage. I made him an offer. He accepted it. All along, I had it in my mind, the question; "Is this boat my old Woodie Hindman I sold over thirty years ago? When Dave, the owner pulled up to the shop, pulling an old wooden boat, I did the 'lean over to look inside' inspection thing. Instantly I said, "THIS is my old boat!
What a joy it was to be re-united with an old friend. The oars, the boat and me, together again, ready for another day on the river.
Amen