The Booth Cooperage in Bayfield, WI

When I walked by the Cooperage building, I could hear lots of hammering and sawing inside. Curious, I looked inside the huge sliding doors . . .

. . . into a cavernous barn with no real floor and disarray everywhere.

Scott looked like he needed a break and came outside to talk. He told me he's a kayak guide for an adventure company (renting the building) that's closed for the season. He said he's been a paddling guide for excursions in Alaska and also substitutes as a teacher for the grade school on Madeline Island.

He added that he's not a contractor, but is learning fast. In this off season, he's rebuilding half of the Cooperage building to house the complete kayak business because the building's owners (who also own the ferry to Madeline Island) now want the large barn half to store vehicles.

His project the day I was there, was building new Men's and Women's dressing rooms in the smaller space the kayak company is squeezing into. He said he didn't mind if I wandered all the rooms and took photos.

His own personal Jensen racing canoe was hanging from the rafters - a canoe shape I've never seen before.

A ladder that seemed to go nowhere into to the ceiling was used when train cars (on long removed RR tracks) pulled up beside massive wooden doors, now boarded and barely visible.

At one time a local fishery filled the entire block. Early sailing vessels would bring their harvests to be salt packed in barrels and shipped to markets. The Cooperage (the only remaining building of that fishery) was where five skilled coopers assembled barrels around an open hearth. The coopers turned out high quality, hand made barrels that held 150 lbs. of salt fish each.

Several of these large rooms have been preserved and are behind glass just down the dark narrow hall from Scott's kayak trekking business.