A few of my favorite model canoes and kayaks

First canoe is a 42" model by Alfred Wickett, made in 1892 for display at the World's Columbian Exposition (aka Chicago World's Fair) of 1893. A very talented young man, Wickett became the first manager of Old Town Canoe Co., before leaving to start up the Penobscot Canoe Co., and later, the St. Louis Meramec Canoe Co.
Second is a 66" planked canoe model from the Solomon Islands, c. 1870, originally collected by Col. Sandford Lewis, a leading US industrialist of those days. For some years, this piece resided in the Franklin, PA, library museum.
Third is a 32" birch bark model of Atikamekw style, made in 1932; it displays beautiful, etched winter bark designs of wildlife and foliage on its hull. Typical of canoes of the area north of the St. Lawrence River, it was recently on loan to the Canadian Canoe Museum.
Fourth is a 38" sealskin kayak model from the Belcher Islands, in the south east quadrant of Hudson Bay, brought back in 1916 by Dr. Elwood Moore, Dean of Mining, U of PA., who was hired to do a geological survey of minerals for the Canadian government. Travel to this area was a remote adventure at the time, requiring weeks of paddling by canoe through Northern Ontario, then transport by steamer the length of James Bay, and out into Hudson Bay. Dr. Moore traveled there in the company of famed documentary film maker Robert Flaherty, who shot footage for his epic film "Nanook of the North" at that time.