The last of Estonia’s master canoe-makers are still carving their niche

On a gray morning, Aivar Ruukel is scouting for the ideal aspen in the Soomaa, a vast wilderness area in southwestern Estonia. The aspen is the preferred tree for making a haabjas, or traditional dugout canoe – an art that is now endangered.

“The ideal tree should have the shape of a pencil, but every tree is perfect in its own way,” even if only a few can be used to build the boat, says Mr. Ruukel.

Some of the trees are covered with black canker, a fungal infection. “You can’t make a haabjas out of them, but they are used by woodpeckers to make their nests, so they serve a higher purpose,” he says.

Mr. Ruukel is one of the last five masters in the Baltic country who make the canoes. Until the 1960s, it was the conventional means of transportation in the Soomaa, or “land of bogs,” region during the spring floods, locally known as the fifth season. Mr. Ruukel and Priit-Kalev Parts, another haabjas maker, are the most vocal advocates for preserving the tradition, which is threatened by the making of fiberglass or other modern – often motorized – boats.

Both Mr. Ruukel and Mr. Parts learned their craft from older masters in the early 1990s, shortly after Estonia gained its independence from the Soviet Union, and are now trying to engage the new generation, training young apprentices in haabjas building. A skillful wielding of the axe to hollow out the tree is only part of the required expertise and techniques, which also involve expanding the trunk by filling it with water and then hanging it above a carefully controlled fire.

What was a necessary means of transportation in the past has now become an Estonian identity marker. In 2021, haabjas building was inscribed on UNESCO’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.

Avedis Hadjian

WHICH WOOD WOULD WORK? Aivar Ruukel searches in the Soomaa forest in southwestern Estonia for aspen trees suitable for making canoes.

Avedis Hadjian

LOGGING IN: Priit-Kalev Parts, a maker of dugout canoes, chops wood on his farm in Aimla, Estonia.

Avedis Hadjian

DOG DAYS: Pitsu, the family pet, is pictured after getting off a canoe following an excursion with Mr. Ruukel on the Pärnu River.

Avedis Hadjian

IN “THE LAND OF BOGS”: Mr. Ruukel (left) and Jari Hyvönen, his brother-in-law visiting from Finland, paddle in canoes on the Pärnu River.

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