Tribute to Canoe Sewmeister Extraordinaire Dan Cooke

Canoe-trippers across the country are mourning the death of longtime canoe accessory-maker Dan Cooke of Minnesota’s Cooke Custom Sewing. While the business will continue with Dan’s son Nate at the helm, the community will miss the longtime canoeist and maker of canoe covers, portage bags, packs, seats, tarps, and more. He even made gear for such venerable canoe explorers as Will Steger, who loved his “emergency mukluks,” and canoe camping author Cliff Jacobson, as well as custom gear for anyone who asked.

Dan had brain cancer; diagnosed in early January 2023. In the evening of July 1 he peacefully passed in his Lino Lakes, Minnesota, home on the shores of Marshan Lake while watching trip photos. He was only 68.

Dan was a FS instructor, twice. He decided to re-up his certification sometime in the early 2010’s. He taught at the Minneapolis’ Midwest Mountaineering Store’s Spring Expos. He enjoyed teaching informally at weekly gatherings on summer evenings on Twin Cities’ lakes to paddle and play with FS and other fun canoe activities. Dan enjoyed getting into the far end of a canoe, cheerfully paddling as the opposite end swung wildly through the air. Oh and backwards — his compound backstroke could out paddle many others going forward.

Dan enjoyed paddling his Bell Flashfire, yes a Flash, even though a Wildfire was on his canoe rack. He was most excited when he finally received his beautiful red Nakoma from the late Tom Mackenzie of Loon Works Canoes. He treasured that canoe. He would paddle and teach from it up at our annual Sawbill Lake fall gatherings of the MN Chapter of the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association. He and I had great fun side-slipping in other’s tandem wood hulls.

Many of his canoes had snaps; snaps for the canoe spray skirts which he designed and sewed. He was a master at these canoe covers. In his craft-basement where his business Cooke Custom Sewing headquartered, imagine rafters filled with rolls of paper patterns of dozens of canoe hulls so that he could make canoe skirts. And if someone wanted, they could drive to his home, he could pattern the cover, sew it and later install the snaps on the canoe. All while chatting happily about their upcoming, often northern Canadian wilderness canoe expeditions.

Other products came out of the business which he and his late wife Karen started in the 1980s. Some of these products came on my canoe trip this summer on the Taltson River in the Canadian NWT. We had a CCS thwart bag with map case, a canoe seat and a barrel pack. Dan also sewed many other styles of packs for canoeing and hiking. And the packs’ details and quality were impeccable because Dan was an engineer. His aptitude seen not only in the final product but also came into play in the small tricks or tools he developed to put the products together.

Then there are the tarps. Dan engineered and sewed simple as well as bug screen tundra tarps. Bright and colorful, strong and waterproof. And this is where Dan as a teacher excelled again; he gave workshops on tarp setup at canoe expos, as well as Winter Camping Symposiums. Dan and Karen also designed and sewed anoraks, mukluks, pulk covers and tents for winter camping. Of late, Dan enjoyed his MN northwood winters when he joined his young godson and the family on their winter camping trips.

Dan was also a photographer. His house had stacks of books he had printed up with photos of their various trips. As well, the house walls were adorned with his photos blown up largely to fill frames and even as much as five foot long showing Karen looking out at the peaks of some mountains they had hiked.

Dan enjoyed the northwoods, especially the Boundary Waters. As a youth he guided for Adventurous Christian camp located off of the Gunflint Trail. This last decade he guided adults on solo canoe Bushcraft trips in the BWCA. Dan would head north in the shoulder seasons for his own solo canoe trips where he sometimes had to break ice to get in and out.