Grand Lake Stream canoe builder Sonny Sprague, 70, in his workshop with a partially completed Grand Laker he's working on. Staff photo by John Patriquin.

''It's a great fishing boat,'' Roriston said. ''You can paddle it among the rocks. It just has a certain feel when you're out in it.''

The Grand Laker fishing canoes built here are indeed a work of art. But Sprague is 70 years old, and the other local canoe craftsmen are also aging. As Roriston pulls out of Sprague's driveway with his canoe, it's like watching a legend fade away.

Grand Laker canoes are about 20 feet long and wider than a typical canoe. They were born of necessity.

Around the turn of the century, sportsmen coming to fish on giant West Grand Lake had to rely on small steamboats to take them to their fishing spots. Paddling the traditional double-end canoes took forever. But with outboard motors just coming into use, an old Maine Guide got an idea. He took a mold from a double-end canoe and cut off the stern, to create a transom for mounting a motor. That was the prototype for the craft that would become known as a Grand Laker.

Sprague builds three a year. He uses the canoe mold his father relied on. And by word of mouth, he's got customers lined up until he dies or retires.

Sprague has one now half-built in his workshop. The cedar-planked hull is done. The first thing you notice is the forward sweep of the bow, designed to take fishermen safely through choppy water.

The ribs, secured by brass tacks, reach up to meet ash rails. Varnish will later give this woodwork a golden glow. At the stern is a rich, mahogany transom, a departure from the traditional oak. Sprague says its stronger. The hull will eventually be fitted with a keel and covered with hand-laid fiberglass. Then it will be painted the trademark color of a Grand Laker, forest green.

But it's unclear whether the Grand Laker legacy will survive. Sprague says he's got a couple of grandsons interested in building, but they're young yet.

Across the village, Jack Perkins isn't optimistic, either.

Perkins, 63, is one of the four Grand Laker craftsmen. He's got 20 boats on order.

''I'll never live long enough,'' he says.

There are people out there building imitation Grand Lakers, Perkins says. But to be authentic, he says, you've got to have a mess of boat stuff around your house, and a shop filled with shavings and sawdust. In early spring, he says, there'd better be plenty of hammering and cutting .

''If all you hear is a Skil saw running,'' he says, ''that ain't canoe making.''

Perkins says he, too, is working with a grandson. But the boy is only 7.

''One thing's for sure,'' he says. ''If it ain't built in Grand Lake Stream, it sure as hell ain't a Grand Laker.''

Canoeing and birch bark canoes

"Arnold Invades Quebec: Canoe-borne attack follows Kennebec, Dead and Chaudiere" is about Colonel Benedict Arnold's birchbark-canoe invasion of Canada, the first amphibious military assault in our nation's history.

Margaret's Algonquin Park Page has tips for planning a canoe trip.

Canoe and Kayak magazine online

The Paddlers' Web

Chat about paddling in the GORP Paddling Forum

Maine Sportsmen's Guide to river trips

Checklist for canoe campers

Top ten tips for safe canoeing