TUMPLINE > > > N E W S BATEMAN AND HIS
PADDLING BUDDHA. PHOTO: TIM MORCH
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BUG FREE MESH ROOM
2-DOORS FRONT & REAR BACKPACK STORAGE BAG SIERRA DESIGNS QUALITY
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ONE HAPPY FAMILY [WHATEVER THE WEATHER]
Thai Take-Out EX-PAT BUILDER FILLS ORDERS IN ASIA
NO LOONS CALL from the middle of Khao Laem Lake as Brent Bateman slips his ca- noe into the water and pushes off toward the Buddhist temple across the lake. Sangkhlaburi is a Tai frontier town
near the border of Myanmar, also known as Te Country Formerly Known As Burma. It’s full of Burmese refugees, Buddhist temples and soldiers—not the place you would expect to find someone launching a Prospector canoe; let alone a canoe-building business. Calgary-born Bateman arrived in 2003
on a break from a life of academia in Bangkok and decided to set up camp. “I fell in love with the area,” Bateman
said, “so I built a shop.” Before the end of the year, Bateman’s new company Sanghalei Canoe and Kayak was ship- ping canoes. He now sells a select roster of high-end canoes and kayaks to buyers with a taste for the exotic. His customers are mainly in Tailand and Hawaii, but Bateman is working with distributors to bring his hulls to North America. Building in Asia means the materi-
S I G N U P T O R E C E I V E O U R N E W S L E T T E R
H T T P : / / C A N A D A . S I E R R A D E S I G N S . C O M / J O I N C A N . H T M L
als differ from the cedar and ash found in most wood strip canoes. Bateman claims he is the only commercial wood strip builder using bamboo. It’s a plant that grows fast and dense in Asia, which
keeps each canoe’s environmental foot- print modest. Bamboo and the other exotic hard-
woods Bateman uses wouldn’t submit easily to the conventional wood strip construction method which uses staples to secure the strips while they are glued together, so he devised a system of male and female steel frames that press on the strips from both sides and hold them in place as the hull takes shape. Each hull is finished with a layer of fibreglass and weighs around 75 pounds. Building canoes in an area better
known for gem smuggling than canoe portaging has presented practical diffi- culties. “Te epoxy lay-up is an issue in the heat and humidity,” says Bateman, who goes on to explain the problems involved in training employees and gaining recognition in a country where canoes have been synonymous with dugout logs. As Bateman skirts the far end of Khao
Laem Lake he notes how different it is from the Vermillion Lakes of Alberta where he paddled his first homebuilt canvas and cedar boat at age 14. He won’t say which lake is more beautiful, but he knows which canoe he prefers. —Tim Morch
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