RUMFORD – Wooden canoes are part of Maine’s history and heritage. So it is only fitting that a canoe trek celebrating the heritage of one of Maine’s mightiest rivers designates a day to them.

Tuesday was wooden boat day on the Androscoggin River Source to the Sea Canoe Trek. Fifty-six boaters in 30 boats paddled 10 miles from Hanover to Rumford. Six of those boats were wooden canoes.

Lunch took place on a sandbar, where owners talked about their wooden boats’ histories.

The oldest, Phil Learned’s of Andover, was built in the 1920s. A “timber cruiser,” the boat presumably was originally used by a paddler scouting lumber. In the 1940s Learned used the 96-pound, 20-foot boat to guide people on Maine’s rivers and lakes. He recently took it down the Allagash. Its cedar planks, spruce rails, ash ribs and canvas skin were recently refurbished by Ray Heinz of Colebrook, N.H. Learned said Heinz told him the nails in his boat haven’t been widely used in more than 75 years. Tuesday’s trip was its maiden voyage since its restoration.

Benson Gray and Laurie Hasty of Falmouth paddled another of the wooden wonders. Their 17-foot Old Town Molitor was their first wedding anniversary gift to each other 23 years ago. Long decks, outside stems and oval mahogany gunwales are so strong that no thwarts – center cross bars that serve to strengthen a canoe’s frame – are needed, according Old Town’s Web site. The lack of a thwart makes for unencumbered space in the boat, allowing for easy loading.

“It’s known as a courting canoe,” said Gray, to the delight of the crowd.

The smallest canoe on the trek Tuesday belonged to Kim Gass of Raymond. She referred to her 32-pound craft as a “lady’s boat,” being much lighter than typical wooden canoes. Made in South Carolina, the 13-footer is designed to be paddled solo.

In the only cedar strip canoe was Bill Noyce of Hollis, N.H., who also built it. Highly polished strips of white and red cedar serve as the boat’s core. The deck, seats and thwart are of cherry; the gunwales of ash.

During Noyce’s talk, Gray quipped, “I’ve heard strip boats are like potato chips – you can’t do just one.”

Noyce agreed, but said he had no immediate plans to build another.

Paul McGuire of Farmington also paddled a self-built wood-canvas canoe. His River Mink was built in Glenburn in the shop of its designer, Dave Mussey, owner of Maine Journeys Canoe.

In his 1930 Old Town green wood-canvas boat named “Emma,” for his granddaughter, was Bob Bassett.

Bassett, the owner of Kimball Pond Boat Barn in Vienna, specializes in wood-canvas canoe restoration. He is also a founding member of the northeast chapter of The Wooden Canoe Heritage Association formed this year. The chapter has 18 members from Maine and New Hampshire.

The association, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, is “devoted to preserving, studying, building, restoring and using wood canoes, and to disseminating information about canoeing heritage throughout the world,” according to its Web site.

Because of the increasing popularity of plastic kayaks, canoe trek organizers are considering a name change. With the trek almost half over, statistics point to the popularity of kayaks, with kayaking participants outnumbering canoeists by almost 20 percent.

But on this day, wooden canoe enthusiasts might like to infer that their presence on the trek contributed to the higher canoe ratio – 26 canoes, four kayaks.