My boats are stacked up for the winter, hibernating in the dark of the garage, waiting for warm weather and open water. The Old Town Pathfinder is on top, it being the smallest and lightest of the three. The Rangeley boat (a molded fiberglass replica) is on the bottom in its trailer cradle. The Pathfinder and the Rangeley are nice boats, but they're production models, common as cats. The boat in the middle is a classic, one of a kind -- as was its maker.

In a month or so, when the snows have gone and the climbing sun rules the day, I'll open the garage door and haul the boats out into the fresh air and will face what has become an annual dilemma: to keep or not to keep the boat now resting in the middle of the stack. It's a special boat, a fifteen-and-a-half foot wood and canvas canoe, hand made for me by the late and sorely missed Andrew Weegar.

Back in 1991 I did some work for Maine Times, the also-missed alternative weekly newspaper which John Cole and Peter Cox founded and which filled an important niche in the Maine journalism scene, especially with its environmental reporting. I told the publisher at the time, Anna Ginn, that I didn't want to be paid in money, I wanted a canoe. Perhaps the Maine Times could trade advertising space for a canoe. I expected to get an Old Town or some other production boat. Instead, I got a treasure.

Andrew Weegar responded to the newspaper's offer and began crafting a canoe for me in his North Bridgton shop, which he founded in the Spring of the year under the banner of the Kimball Canoe Company. Kimball was Andrew's middle name and he "liked the alliteration," he told the Bridgton newspaper at the time.

In August of that year, the boat was finished. The white cedar planking and ribs, the caned seats, the little black cherry triangle of a deck, all gleamed under smooth coats of varnish. The canvas skin was painted forest green, the classic color of a Maine canoe. When I first saw the boat, I thought I was gazing upon the Mona Lisa.

I was no less impressed with the young man who made the boat. Andrew exuded a no-nonsense confidence in his craftsmanship and in himself. He turned over the boat to me and helped me load it onto my car. We shook hands and I drove away with my then-girlfriend Weenie (not her real name) to test the boat in the waters of nearby Highland Lake.

As important as that boat was to me, building it turned out well for Andrew, too. The connection he made to Maine Times got him not just advertising space, but column inches as an environmental writer. Andrew went on to become not only a writer but a nationally-known teacher of environmental journalism and a man of many other accomplishments. Friends called him a Renaissance Man. There's a website I'd like you to see to learn more about Andrew: ijnr.org.

I don't use Andrew's canoe much anymore. It's hard for me to hoist up onto my roof rack alone or carry down a trail to a pond. So I toss the Pathfinder on the truck and the wood-and-canvas work of art stays home. And each Spring I face the dilemma of keeping my Andrew Weegar canoe or finding a good home for it, with someone who will use it and care for it. This Spring I know I will be no closer to an answer.