Ralph Sawyer’s Oscoda, MI Canoe Factory, ca1964-65

My name is Mike Brandt, and I live in Charleston, SC.  I was originally from Oscoda, Michigan, and my father built a cabin on Cedar Lake in Oscoda, MI in 1960, back when it was a choice weekend retreat back in the heyday for all the factory workers in southern Michigan.  At that time, Detroit, Flint, and Saginaw, MI were the hub of automotive manufacturing, and much has changed in the state since then.

We loved the quaint little town of Oscoda back then, and came into town each summer to see the finale of the arduous 240 mile AuSable River canoe marathon, and a few years went up to Grayling to see the start, and follow the leaders from Dam to Dam as the excitement built.  What Ralph and the other racers endured paddling through the backwaters of each dam still impresses me some 50 years later.  The skinny little cedar strip canoes propelled by the strong-chested racers would almost lift the canoes out of the water with each stroke with their strange-looking wide cedar paddles up at Grayling as they sprinted to get out front and establish the pace of the race.

One day, my father decided we needed a canoe, and became aware of the little canoe factory right downtown next to the bridge over the AuSable River at E. Mill Street, not much bigger than a very large garage, as I recall.  I remember well visiting this original plant with my father, and meeting Ralph, and seeing for the first time how a fiberglass canoe was actually made in a mold: it seemed like rocket science to us, as all we ever knew was a traditional wood/canvas canoe.  The big sellers as I recall were the 16 foot Cruiser and the 18 foot Guide (a very stable, wide model with a flat bottom).  I remember Ralph mentioning that he was producing about 7 canoes per day.  Construction back then was all hand-laid, starting with gel coat, followed by a few layers of rolled-on matte, then cloth, and finally about 2 layers of heavy roving on the floor, air tanks aluminum trim, and the signature bright white slick contoured fiberglass seats.  Back then, there was no EPA yet, so the polyester and MEK fumes were vented to the atmosphere. (Note: After Ralph Sawyer sold the company and left Oscoda, Bob Gramprie took over the operation, and built a new larger plant right on the river a few miles away, which lasted for a number of years, and my best friend in high school worked there for some years). Back then, Ralph was a local hero in Oscoda.  And as I recall, Ralph was also making the wider paddles and had them for sale as well, again, so much wider and lighter than the traditional wood paddles of the day.

My dad ending up buying a yellow 18’ Sawyer Guide that day, and we had that canoe for many years until my father passed in the mid 1980s.  We did not buy one of Ralph’s paddles that day, but my dad, being a do-it- your-selfer who even made his own fishing poles, mentally copied Ralph’s basic concept, and built his own from a pine closet pole and cedar shingles as I recall, and then fiberglassed the living daylights out of the whole affair: it was probably a foot wide at the bottom, and weighed a lot, but my dad loved it, and used it for many years.  We moved to Oscoda in 1966, and I lived there until the mid seventies when I left for college and moved away.  We knew the Grampries well, and I knew his kids in school.

I think it is wonderful to know that Ralph and his heritage of leading edge designs of canoes and paddles lives on with a new canoe company in the Midwest, and your paddles out on the Pacific coast.  And congratulations to Ralph, for his recent induction to the Hall of Fame.

My son just graduated from college a couple of years ago, so I dug out his stitch and glue kayak, cleaned it up and put a few coats of paint, and he just picked it up the other day, to take it back out onto the tidal creeks down here in Charleston, SC.  So maybe I need to get to closure, order a new Sawyer Kayak paddle for him for Christmas….

Sincerely,

Mike Brandt