From privet hedge to coracle
Rooster Fricke
Woods Hole, Cape Cod, Massachusetts USA
What started as the pruning of a hedgerow turned into a coracle. Having seen a coracle many years ago, I had always wanted to build one. The time was right when the privet hedge switches lay on the ground. They were destined to go to the brush dump. But wait! Not the brush dump! “We’re going to build a coracle!”
Through a combination of research, including Coracles of the World by Sir Peter Badge, and on-the-fly experimentation, a coracle rose out of the ground. Almost literally. The thwart was slabbed from a maple tree that we had felled on our property. A paddle is being made from a spruce plank slabbed from another tree. The canvas was sealed using beeswax from our honeybees. A wholly satisfying endeavor.
