Great Northern Boatworks

While he was working in San Francisco he chose to attend boatbuilding school to learn some basic woodworking skills, little did he know this would lead to an unending fascination and career working with wooden boats. He finished the apprenticeship program at Arques School of Traditional Boatbuilding in 2001 and has been working as a boat restorer ever since. In his fifteen plus years in restoration he has worked on over a hundred boats, from installing 2" thick bottom planking on the Minnehaha to replacing canvas on canoes. In addition to the many facets of boatbuilding, he has become expert at assessing the condition of wooden boats and estimating the cost to repair and restore them. Let him design a plan for your wooden boat.

Russell was raised on a strict diet of quartzite and granite on the shores of Lake Huron. He spent his youth exploring the islands and inlets of Georgian Bay. He began his boat repair career in 1995 in his father's marina and marine repair shop in Killarney, Ontario. After some travelling he found his home in Minneapolis and has been restoring wooden boats full time in the Twin Cities since 2004.

Theo has been a professional shipwright since 2003. In that time he has restored dozens of Chris Crafts and other runabouts. He is happy to share his wealth of knowledge about boat construction, and is always endeavoring to learn as much as he can from each new project or person that comes his way.