Wooden Boat Wednesday: In the Barnegat Bay Tradition (1982 NJN Video)

It's Wooden Boat Wednesday!

This week we again bring you an archival NJN video, "In the Barnegat Bay Tradition," from 1982, featuring sneakbox-building and decoy-carving, plus music by Merce Ridgway.

IN THE BARNEGAT BAY TRADITION (NJN VIDEO LINK on FOLKSTREAMS)

From the site Folkstreams: "A half-hour documentary about decoy carving and sneakbox (wooden duck-hunting boats) building along the New Jersey Shore, featuring National Heritage Award winning decoy carver Harry V. Shourds and boatbuilder Sam Hunt. The program shows the structure of sneakboxes by depicting how they are made, the traditional use of both decoys and sneakboxes in duck hunting, the difference between handmade and factory decoys, and how decoys have become folk art for display rather than use. There are on-camera interviews with folklorists Mary Hufford and Bernard Herman, historical archaeologist David Orr, and the late duck hunter and decoy collector John A. Hillman. This documentary originally was distributed by New Jersey Network."

As supplemental materials, we also have profiles on both artisans thanks to the New York Times and National Endowment for the Arts.