Submitted by:
John Shaw-Rimmington
The Farfarers ancient boat-stone shelter came about due to the good will, financial and professional support, hard work and enthusiasm of a large and diverse group of people drawn together for many reasons.
In the beginning it got " off the ground" due to the enormous affection and respect a great number of us feel in Canada for Farley and Claire Mowat, both their long contributions to Canadian literature and their connection of many years to Port Hope.
We came together to find the right boat, bring it to Port Hope, remaking it to play the part of an ancient walrus hide covered boat, strong enough to cross the north Atlantic.
Other people heard about the project and contributed the stone the site and the funding to make this thing happen
Dry stone wallers, both professional craftsmen and women came together on Canadian Thanksgiving weekend over the three days of the festival. They came from many parts of the world to build the curve shaped dry stone foundation for the longhouse structure .
On the third day the boat hull was lifted on to its dry stone base and the entire structure was completed on schedule.
My hope is that this project will be a monument both to Farley Mowet , whose imagination and skill brought the story of Alban explorers back to life and a reminder to us of the vital role of imagination, creativity and inspired thinking (with which we are all blessed with ) plays in our lives together. It took a community of different skills to bring this thing to life.
It is difficult to know what to call the actual structure.
Just what is it exactly?
Hopefully it represents a variety of things to different people.
Perhaps the fact that it is a 'double-ender' is a clue to its importance and meaning for me.
The term 'double-ender' suggests looking at the sailing craft from two different angles, and thinking about being able to call either end the front or bow.
The shape itself suggests that those in the vessel have a choice in the direction they choose to head. It is a structure that already has some adaptability to its shape.
Continuing this analogy, as a simple curved shaped craft itself it can in fact be adapted from a sea worthy sailing vessel to a safe shelter in a hostile land.
So too, the rocks along the hazardous coast of Arctic Canada, are perceived as not just something to be avoided but in fact, a useful building material.
The skills needed for sailing the craft are now readapted from those requiring 'seamanship' to those requiring a different kind of craftsmanship and ingenuity.
We all have this ability.
We all have a craft that we venture out on the sea of life in.
We have to 'go the distance' in our craft, whether it be a chosen craft or one we have more of less found ourselves 'out at sea' in. Like these early sea farers, we can't always turn back, we have to take our craft further and further, out of necessity, whether it be further across the Atlantic in search of walrus skins or just further along the course that somehow seems set for us.
Here in Canada I've found myself called to initiate and steer this dry stone walling organization/festival/craft thing to some sort of destination. It seems almost inevitable that I have to pursue projects of this type. ( dreaming up ideas and organizing the building of various massive stone structures)
Others are compelled to develop their 'craft' too. If nothing else it is a kind of natural development, and in this, it seems to me there are three important aspects, imagination, creativity and craftsmanship and they carry us all along the way.
And they often carry us past the safe waters of home, well beyond ordinary and predictable outcomes.
Life, (in our particular craft) involves taking risks and seeing a vision through to the end. At some point on this adventure, usually out of necessity, because we can't always return or at least, can't always go back when we want , at these landmark occasions, we have to look at our 'craft' in a totally different way.
We have to think outside the box, or think inside an upside down boat!
We have to look at our boat as a resource more useful to us now as something that, for the time being anyway, 'wont be floating'
'The boat that wouldnt float' may, in fact , be a good thing
Farley's actual boat that wouldnt float was the inspiration for a wonderful book. Almost certainly , as a book, in the long haul, it was more entertaining, gave more 'pleasure' and from Farley, was more a gift to others than it would have been, had he owned just an ordinary , uninteresting boat that did float!
' Our craft ', that sometimes looks like it wont float , or it isnt floating, may be the very thing it needs to be, or that very gift to others it needs to be. That upside-down-boat on that pile of what looks like useless rocks can be that very something too, that gets us through a season of harshness and coldness and bareness
As a craft it is a 'Dual Purpose Object.' both, Vessel in uncharted sea, and Hospice through the winter of unknowing.
We are all craftsmen and women We all need to look at our crafts in different ways sometimes.
We need to be flexible, adaptive, try to welcome change, and we need to see the situation, ourselves, our surroundings, the rocks around us and the boats tied up to them, - everything, in a different light.