Straightening a bent stem on a Gruman

Hi All,

I’m new to the website but have been enjoying everything I’ve learned.

A couple of weeks ago I went out with a group on a canoe camping trip to Elephant Lake in northern MN. A buddy was paddling my old gruman with his son on the way out and he said it was oddly hard to control We switched for the rest of the trip (him paddling my penobscot, me with the gruman) and I discovered that it was incredibly squirrelly. When we were loading it on the trailer at the end of the trip I noticed the bent stem on the stern. It seems subtle (picture attached), but it looks to me like enough to make control difficult.

I’d like to straighten this out, but before I tackle it I’d like to see if anyone else has tackled similar.

Any advice is deeply appreciated.

ARC