Tamakwa's Pointers are a tourist attraction of sorts. Cars have been seen stopping on Highway 60 at South Tea Lake, so that Algonquin paparazzi can jump out to photograph our two sleek 36 ft. Pointer boats. (They were either paparazzi or spies from other camps.)

Picturesque perhaps, but Pointers propel people with purpose, positive performance, and practicality. They aren't just another pretty boat. They carry 25 big people (or 30 little people) to and fro across the lake from camp to the landing. With a wide flat shallow hull for stability, long pointy bow that noses in close to rocky shorelines for boarding passengers, and long hull to keep the motor far from the rocks and deadheads....the Pointer seems tailor-made for an Algonquin Park camp that's accessible only by water. Actually, they were tailor-made for Algonquin.....not for camp, but for logging.

Why are they called "Pointers"? Are they named after their inventor John Jacob Jingleheimer Pointer??? No, not really. In fact, boat builder John Cockburn designed the original Pointer with two pointy ends for loggers to manoeuvre huge pine timbers in the river-drives of the last century. They were propelled NOT by outboard motors like today, but gondolier style....two guys with long poles. (We recreate that historical -- usually hysterical -- scene when the gas runs out.)

Years later, someone squared off one of the pointy ends, slapped an outboard motor on the stern, and....Voila!!....the Day-Off boat was born. The first Pointers anyone can remember at Tamakwa were bought second hand by 'Unca' Lou Handler, starting in 1950 with a 20 ft. tiller driven outboard model. Since then, the Tamakwa succession of Pointers goes like this:

• Black 36 ft. inboard named "Jennifer Jo II".
• Red 36 ft. outboard named "Cheryl" (later painted yellow and renamed "Daisy").\
• Yellow 36 ft. outboard named "Daisy II" -- built in 1968 by Cockburn & Sons.
• Green trimmed cedar named "Daisy III" (better known as "Cowan") -- built in 1981 by Cowan brothers.
• Burgundy (later Brown) trimmed cedar named "Unca" -- built in 1982 by Cowan brothers.