Lakefield was also a hub of canoe building within the Trent Valley. There’s a strong possibility that Thomas Gordon of Lakefield was the first to make a canoe out of milled strips of wood. By the 1858 he was building canoes commercially (Moore CanoeCraft:20) under the name Thomas Gordon Canoe Co. and by 1860 the Stickland Canoe Co was established in Lakefield as well. In 1892, Robert Strickland founded Strickland and Co. which had its name changed to the Lakefield Canoe Works in 1900. In 1904, Gordon and Strickland combined and reorganized the business as the Lakefield Canoe Co. and had various subsequent name changes. |
