Fortunately, most of the original records from building these canoes are still available from the factory. This unique treasure has been saved before natural decay or some unfortunate accident deprived historians and the thousands of Old Town canoe owners of a chance to trace the roots of their cherished canoes. The electronic archive project preserved this chronicle of canoe history at Old Town and made it more available for future research. The build records consist of several hundred thousand paper cards with hand written notes about how and when a canoe was built.
Computer scanning preserves the records like an electronic photocopy.
This information is even more useful in a database. The information could also be made available through this web site at some point in the future. It will take some work to offer a service which would allow you to type in a canoe's serial number and see the original model, ship date, color, and other details. Example database summary Volunteers are creating a canoe database now by exchanging information over the internet. They review the scanned card's images on their PC and key the most important information into an electronic mail message using a standard structure.