Ghana’s Volta River flowed through a tunnel that, on May 19, 1964, was suddenly blocked, causing water to rise up against the newly-deposited gravel banks of the Akosombo dam.  The river was then forced to flow backwards, submerging acacias and baobabs in what soon became the world’s largest artificial lake at 8,502 km2.  To transverse this lake by canoe was dangerous, not only because of the protruding underwater trees, but also because the canoes themselves were designed for rivers. 

It was these tippy canoes that brought Bent and Jannie Jespersen, along with their four children, to Ghana in 1971.  Under the auspice of the United Nations, Bent was to design a strong and easily-built boat for the new Lake Volta.  Unfortunately, when the Jespersens arrived in the September rainy season, they discovered that there was no wood with which to build the boats.  Wood, the Ghanaian government had decided, was a primitive material, and fibreglass was more fitting to Ghana’s rapid industrialization scheme.  Bent shakes his head at this memory, because fibreglass boat construction demands a degree of infrastructure and specialized equipment beyond the few hand planes that were available to Ghanaians.  ‘You have to walk before you can run,’ he commented.

Bent’s wry criticism could well apply to the Akosombo dam itself, a technologically-advanced project in the midst of subsistence farms.  Ostensibly, the dam was built to help Ghanaians, the idea being that an industrialized country is less vulnerable to exploitation.  But the interests of ordinary Ghanaians turned out to be a low priority as the dam forced 80,000 people into crowded resettlement camps, robbing them of fertile farmland, potable water and sites of spiritual significance.  As Bent noted, some farmers continuously reestablished their farms a little further from the lakeside, each attempt destroyed as the dam’s backflow grew. 

After a month in search of wood, Bent noticed a motorcyclist waiting to catch a  ferry.  He went to speak to him, and as it turns out, this man was the director of a fishing school on an island in the lake.  During their conversation, it became clear that the paths of the two men had crossed by a lucky stroke of fate: the fishing school needed stable boats, and had the funds to buy Bent wood.  Bent received milled Iroko and immediately began to train farmers-turned-fishermen in boatbuilding.  Later, his students would return to their lakeside communities to teach others the skills that Bent had taught them.

During our conversation, Bent sketched a profile and cross-section of the boats he’d built in Ghana, and I misread them, thinking they represented boxy things with massive external stringers.  It was several months later that I was flipping through the blank pages at the end of a photo album – in this case, the album of yachts that mark Bent’s career – when the rippled backdrop of a darkened Lake Volta unexpectedly appeared before me, its surface graced by a white craft.  A double-ended dory with straight sides and gentle sheer, it had a harmony of design that made it highly capable, yet with a playful attitude toward the various moods of the lake.  On the shore, beyond the lens of the camera, Bent’s wife holds a bottle of wine to break over the bow, drummers roll out rhythms of celebration and reporters muse over how to word this event, which will become front-page news.  In a place so badly damaged by big technology, it is ironic that part of the solution would be something as simple and beautiful as a hand-crafted wood boat.

by Kate Chandler