by Thelma Thwartbender (attorney at law and gourmand)

travelling with James Raffan on the National Treasure Tour

So at the end of the Edmonton show at Grant MacEwan University a guy came up to Jimmy and, in a sort of conspiratorial voice, said: "Hey, if you've got a minute you should check out the Five Star Pawn Shop at 118th Avenue and 123rd Street.  They have a real birch bark canoe on the wall."   Just the thought of some coureur des bois wandering in off the North Saskatchewan and hawking his canoe for some drinking cash set Jimmy's heart a fluttering, so he and his buddy Morton set out early enough from Camrose to take a trip into town to check things out.  Turns out it wasn't called the Five Star, it was called Loan Star Jewellery and Loans and there it was just where the chap said it would be.  And ... sure enough, there was a bark canoe hanging from the ceiling right above the Kiss-autographed electric guitars, a couple of old saxophones, a ceremonial Jan Arden CD in a really nice frame, and a Miller High Life neon beer sign.

Jimmy was expecting some kind of backyard-special bark canoe.  Not.  First thing he noticed was that was sixteen feet long and appeared to be made from one piece of bark.  The workmanship was exquisite. Owner Mike Monaghan (above) as a tad perplexed by all the questions but he played along.  Seems the canoe came with the place when he bought the store from its previous owner and, the story got a little more complex, a condition of sale was that he would never ever sell said canoe.  Mike said that he liked it for atmosphere and that the canoe, with other 'atmospheric items' like the stuffed buffalo head, a stretched beaver pelt, barber chair and a couple of stuffed birds, gave the place a unique feel.

As he was talking, Jimmy got in behind the counter and had to be restrained when he stepped up on a chair and started trying to get a closer look.  Mike was concerned that he might fall and wreck some of the musical instruments on offer.  However, getting a little bit curious himself by now, Mike disappeared into the back and got a small step ladder so that they might get up for a closer look.  And while Jimmy was ogling the details and decorations on the craft and pestering him for details, Mike called the previous owner.  Alas, besides remembering that he'd purchased the canoe from 'a guy in Cold Lake' he had no other information about the canoe, except that he thought there might be a name on it somewhere.   Jimmy just about dropped his teeth when they found that name.

There were other clues that this might be a boat made by one of the preeminent living bark builders in North America—the St. Lawrence River Malecite lines, the superb workmanship, the delicate fleur-de-lis on one end, the other decorations including the fancy deck flap—but the signature in red paint sealed it.  Henri Vaillancourt, star of John McPhee's Survival of the Bark Canoe.  Who knew???  In an Edmonton pawn shop!