build a birch bark canoe

He’s a logger, and will collect the bark for me before he removes the trees. This summer will be the time

this shows a good shot from the rear of the canoe. You can see the ribs pretty good here, as well as the end board.

of course you’ll have to look at these entries from last to first, because, that’s how this site works unfortunately. I wish we could put our entries in order. But we can’t, so oh well.

It’s a good profile shot of it.

When I look at this pic, it makes me think about the amazing qualities of these canoes. The style they called a “Montreal Canoe” was the largest. They were 40 feet long, more or less, eight feet wide at the beam and capable of carrying six thousand pounds, plus the ten voyageur paddlers and their gear.

And they were still made in the same way. Imagine that, they sewed together a freighter.

For their project they decided to build a model of a birch bark canoe. Two of the three friends are of native descent, and have been already making art this year that has a native flair to it. One of them has both Blackfoot and Cherokee in her blood, while the one who really spearheded this idea is 1/4 Ojibwe (we often converse in Ojibwe together). They want to build a real one this summer, so they wanted to use all the proper techniques for building this one.

Sinse it’s the wrong time of year to be able to harvest the right materials, they had to improvise. They actually used sheets of paper that they papermached and painted to use for the birch bark. They then sewed it together into a sheet, just like they will with real birch bark. For the gunwales (pronounced “gunnels”) they couldn’t steam and bend long pieces of cedar right now, so they used refrigerator box cardboard glued together. For the ribs to have the right bend, yet have the springness and firmness to shape the canoe body they used four layers of cardstock. And of course they couldn’t sew it with spruce root yet, so they used a doubled layer of thick yarn.

By the time they got to the part where they were sewing the rind to the gunwales, they had about five other people who were interested enough in their project to help out. It kind of became a whole class project then (as many of the other students realized too that this project was way more work and effort than they themselves had put in on their own project – that is except for the two who had some real interesting and high quality welded metal sculptures).

Although they couldn’t use the real materials, they did use the real building techniques. because of the experience they got doing this, I as well as they now have full confidence that they will be able to build a real one this summer. Also, since I worked as advisor/overseer with them on this project, I realized that it is easier than I thought it was, and I will also build on for sure now this summer too.

This model is five and a half feet long and 1 foot nine inches wide at the beam.

preparing right now. We’re getting spruce and balsam trees ready for the gum harvest. We’re looking for other spruce that might work well for making watap. We’re getting the templates ready. I have to make a steam box, and find the right cedars to harvest for the ribs. We’re also on the lookout for birch trees with thick enough rind, that aren’t half destroyed by fungus and moss (man, it rains alot here).

Everything has to be ready, because once we harvest the rind, we only have one week to complete the canoe before the bark gets too brittle to work with.