“I wanted to give people a place where they can come and talk and learn about kayaks and kayaking and what its history and culture is like,” the owner said.
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A month after a fire destroyed or damaged several buildings on Custom House Wharf in Portland, the owner of one business said he’s looking at options to reboot his shop.
“We’ve arranged for storage,” Harley Lewin, the owner of Nanuq Kayaks, told Mainebiz. “We think we can salvage about a third of the boats.”
The three-alarm fire occurred Dec. 26 at 25 and 27 Custom House Wharf, causing significant damage to several portions of the attached buildings, including storage and maintenance spaces used by multiple fishermen, lobstermen’s trap-repair shops and businesses such as Nanuq Kayaks and Maritime Antiques.
‘Reformed lawyer’
Lewin is a “reformed lawyer,” as he says on his website, who moved to Maine from New York City and started Nanuq Kayaks seven years ago.
Nanuq is the Inuit word for polar bear. The adoption of Nanuq “represents our homage to Inuit culture and the Greenland-style boats, paddles and gear they created, now used in updated forms,” he says on his website.
He’s loved the outdoors since he was a kid, took up paddling when he was 30, has paddled the entire Maine Island Trail solo and is a registered Maine sea kayak guide.
“I’m 81 now. There isn’t much of the Maine coast I haven’t paddled,” he said.
High-performance
He established the shop on the Maine Wharf, next to Custom House Wharf.
“I saw a need for slowing down and restoring some of what makes Maine kayaking cool,” he said.
He sells high-performance sea kayaks made by hand by Rockpool Kayaks in Wales, along with paddles, apparel and gear; and offers repairs on kayaks of all types of construction. He set up his shop with a clubhouse vibe.
“I wanted to give people a place where they can come and talk and learn about kayaks and kayaking and what its history and culture is like,” he said.
The Maine Wharf spot had a second story whose separate tenants who were bothered by the smell of chemicals that wafted up a stairwell from Lewin’s repair operation, he said. So he worked with landlord Steve Goodrich to relocate the shop to Custom House Wharf in 2024.
“It worked perfectly.” He said.
Salvage
At the time of the fire, he had 14 kayaks on display, plus one in for repairs.
“We think we can salvage about a third of the boats,” he said.
As a world traveler who’s visited dozens of countries since he was 19, he also had paintings and handicrafts on display. Along with his other inventory, he estimated the value of what he lost at $200,000 to $250,000.
His latest order from Rockpool is due in April.
“I already have storage space for it,” he said.
He’s optimistic about recreating the shop. The possibilities include rebuilding the shop on the wharf or finding another space, either permanently or temporarily. In the meantime, he said, he’s waiting on repairs to the wharf itself.
“We’re hoping demolition will start soon,” he said. “We haven’t been able to go in and salvage yet.”
A silver lining has been finding out how much his shop has meant to people.
“People wrote to me about the shop changing their lives,” he said. “We provided that clubhouse. You don’t know if it works. But I got an email from Italy, Germany, Florida, California, Wisconsin, Canada, up and down the coast. I said, ‘Whoa, it worked!’”
