Collecting boats is an Okoboji kind of thing

The walls of their quaint Spirit Lake cottage are covered with Native American art, African masks and just about everything in between. While Penny has taken to collecting wooden potato mashers and oil cans, her husband has acquired nearly 40 antique toy boats.

Wiersma, who served as captain of Queen II -- a steamer that gives tours of Lake Okoboji at Arnolds Park Amusement Park -- lights up when we talks about his diverse collection of clockwork, steam and electric-powered wood boats that are displayed on shelves and a top hutches in the bathrooms, living room, dinning room and kitchen.

A handmade model of the original Queen that he received from his in-laws 30 years ago started the collection. The replica sits on a shelf adjacent to a photo of Wiersma donning a fur hat and mittens. The picture was taken on his very first and only Christmas Eve cruise. It was six degrees when he set sail on Lake Okoboji with a boatload of passengers.

"I saw things like this online and I went, 'Cool,'" Wiersma said as he held a tiny wooden sailboat printed with skull and cross bones. An antique Hartz Mountain can is incorporated into the design. "How can you go wrong with something like that?"

Wiersma pictures father and son, grandfather and grandson in the garage putting together many of the boats in his collection, which date back to the early 1900s. The majority of the boats were purchased online from eBay for $3 to $500.

"It was just one of those things. One thing led to another which led to another," he said with a chuckle.

Wiersma has an electric submarine, a fence post with broom sticks for sails and a battleship with pencils for torpedoes. Thumbtacks are portals and talcum powder lids serve as smokestacks.

"It's all what pops into their little brains," said Wiersma who gathers his boats up every other year and takes them to the wooden boat show.

Although Wiersma hasn't sailed any of toy boats in water, he believes they were played with in small ponds and bathtubs. Some show wear from being driven across the floor.

"Isn't that just a marvelous thing!" Penny Wiersma exclaimed, as she held a boat resembling an eel that was chiseled out from a piece of wood. "Look at the face on it. I can see a little kid just going nuts."

Each boat has a story to tell.