Cypress boats mix function and art

TIPTONVILLE, Tenn. -- Dale Calhoun shapes and bends the long cypress planks the same way his family has done for four generations.

Sanded and planed to blueprints that exist only in his head, the planks will form the hull of a genuine "stumpjumper," a small sporting boat as unique to northwest Tennessee as a pirogue is to south Louisiana.

"The lake boats, or stumpjumpers as they are sometimes called, evolved on Reelfoot Lake and nowhere else, and Dale is the last master builder of that type of boat," said Robert Cogswell, director of folklife for the Tennessee Arts Commission.

Calhoun, 67, doesn't know how many stumpjumpers he's made but "it's in the thousands."

"I wish I'd serial numbered them when I started, but I didn't," he said at his small workshop beside Reelfoot Lake. "I made my first boat when I was about 12 years old."

Premier site for fishing

Reelfoot, the region's premier fishing lake, was created by a series of earthquakes in 1811 and 1812. Covering 15,000 acres, the lake is shallow and stumpy, a natural breeding ground for game fish such as bass, crappie and bream.

It has a few holes 15 to 20 feet deep but its average depth is just 5 feet, and the many stumps make navigation difficult.

By the late 1800s, Reelfoot fishermen and hunters began developing a boat that could slip over or slide around the stumps while remaining stable enough to handle rough, open water.

The stumpjumper was born from the same kind of necessity that led residents of south Louisiana to develop the dugout swamp boat they call a pirogue.

Calhoun's great-grandfather, Joseph, a farmer, bricklayer and blacksmith, started building boats in his spare time around 1910.

His son, Boone, took up the craft and passed it along to his son, William, Calhoun's father.

Many Reelfoot residents built boats, including stumpjumpers, over the years, but the Calhouns stuck with it longer than anyone else.

Now, Calhoun's boats are more than just functional watercraft. They're works of art.

Using cypress planks and oak strips for framing, he makes his boats on order, one at a time.

He sells to fishermen, hunters and "people who understand this is important Americana," Cogswell said. "They're willing to buy a boat just so they can own a stumpjumper, and it may end up on a lake in Nevada or somewhere."

Powered by engine

The boats are generally 15 to 17 feet long, with flat bottoms and rounded sides. They're pointed at both ends much like a canoe.

Now, they're usually powered by 3- to 8-horse-power inboard engines. Handmade, straight-backed chairs provide seating.

A small lever works the throttle, and a long tiller operates a flat, iron rudder.

In the old days, the stumpjumpers had no engines, just an unusual oar mechanism that let a boater to face forward while pulling back on the oars -- all the better to look out for stumps.

The stumpjumpers still are equipped with that rowing machinery, which has a foggy history but apparently was developed in the Reelfoot region.

It takes about two weeks to build a boat. A 17-footer with an 8-horsepower engine and a trailer sells for $3,230.