Welcome and congratulations, the Carleton canoe with serial number 17238 is an 17 foot long, regular (or middle) grade, Carleton model with red western cedar planking, open spruce gunwales, birch decks, birch thwarts, birch seats, a keel, and outside stems. It was built between November, 1922 and February, 1923. The original exterior paint color was dark green with a light green border stripe and a half inch gold stripe with turned down ends in between. This probably looked similar to the one shown at
http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/designs/design07.gif but without the additional black and white stripe. It shipped on March 20th, 1923 to Chicago, Illinois. A scan of this build record can be found by following the link under the thumbnail image attached below.
This scan and several hundred thousand more were created with substantial grants from the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association (WCHA) and others. A description of the project to preserve these records is available at
http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/records/ if you want more details. I hope that you will donate, join or renew your membership to the WCHA so that services like this can continue. See
http://www.wcha.org/about-wcha to learn more about the WCHA and
http://www.wcha.org/store/membership to join.
It is also possible that you could have another number or manufacturer if this description doesn't match your canoe. Old Town purchased Carleton in March, 1910 so this was built well after that. However, this would have been one of the early ones made with diamond headed bolts. Feel free to reply here if you have any other questions.
Benson