WASHINGTON: Bay Port High School students Alex LaLuzerne and Eric Heim are expecting to like the grade they receive for their latest hands-on project. “I do a carrot-and-stick approach, is that if it’s here (on time), you get an A,” said Mike Phillips, an engineering and technology teacher at the Suamico school.
After Phillips gave an ultimatum of “If we’re not here, you’re not going to like the grade I give ya,” the industrious woodworking tandem of LaLuzerne and Heim, with the help of several others from Bay Port, delivered on time. Phillips and a team of students dropped off their newly crafted wooden canoe at the Neville Public Museum of Brown County on Thursday morning.
The 6-foot-long canoe — it’s actually the frame of the watercraft, which is set on a colorful base that represents the Fox River — will be featured in the “Life and Death at Fort Howard” exhibit at the downtown Green Bay museum. The exhibit, which starts April 16 and runs until next spring, commemorates the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Army’s occupation of Fort Howard along the west bank of the river at what would later become the city of Green Bay.
Neville curator Lisa Zimmerman reached out to Phillips last fall as a way to get some community involvement for the new exhibit. He recruited students from his advanced wood technology class, and the work started in the winter. “We, as teachers, have been given the challenge to try to have our students exposed to as much real-life situations as possible,” Phillips said.
Bay Port junior Andrew McDougal designed the canoe, working with a three-dimensional computer program. Phillips said the inspiration for the design was an old birch-bark canoe that he and McDougal examined among the Neville’s extensive artifacts collection.
In turn, LaLuzerne, a senior, and Heim, a junior, took the lead on building the canoe. “It’s just made of plywood and construction lumber,” Phillips said. “Just cut, glued and put together.” The construction was occasionally intricate, however, because of how some of the pieces had to be cut, especially with the curvy bow at the front of the canoe. The builders used a variety of machinery in the Bay Port woodshop to cut and sand the wood.
“The biggest challenge was getting everything to fit together,” LaLuzerne said. “Fitting it on paper and actually building it is two way different things.” After devoting each day of Phillips’ 45-minute class and also spending time after school to build the canoe in less than two months, LaLuzerne and Heim turned the project over to five students in art teacher Dan Klewer’s 3D advanced studio class.
Bay Port juniors Kelly Brunner, Jonah Field, Larissa Kesti, Grace Roberts, Michaela Williams applied the finishing touches the last two weeks by painting the plain wood of the canoe and also the base. Their splash of color for the river scene is an extension of a backdrop to the exhibit display that is a digital copy of an 1899 painting by Blanche Ostertag depicting Fort Howard along the river.
“So, we had to find colors that would go good with that,” Brunner said. Museum officials gave a big thumbs-up to the new display, which will be an interactive component in the upcoming exhibit. Attendees will be able to take a seat in the canoe. “It’s going to be a photo opportunity,” said Beth Lemke, the museum’s executive director.
