Building a Birchbark canoe...

Art Mulder

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Got this link off the Canadian forum...

Cesar's Bark Canoe -- national film board of Canada

"This documentary shows how a canoe is built the old way. César Newashish, a 67-year-old Attikamek of the Manawan Reserve north of Montreal, uses only birchbark, cedar splints, spruce roots and gum. Building a canoe solely from the materials that the forest provides may become a lost art, even among the Native peoples whose traditional craft it is. The film is without commentary but text frames appear on the screen in Cree, French and English. "

I believe it dates from 1971

I'll warn you, it's an hour long. I jumped around and watched chunks of it. Fascinating to see what he does with so little.

...art
 
Fantastic! There are many interesting details, like the way the bent laminated stems are made of a single piece of wood split into slats but left attached at one end. Thank you so much for posting this.
 
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Art that was great. Did you notice all the precision tools. :rofl: I guess you knew to throw that bait out there and i would bite hook line and sinker.:D:thumb:

I have a book on this topic that covers a number of different builders. The tool this guy uses to shave the wood and shape it they made from a file that gets ground down and bent up. I bet they dont have any use for Shapton stones to sharpen the pocket knife or the shaping tool.:D

If you got access to the library they might have this book if you interested to read more.

By the way thanks for posting this. As a new canuck i really appreciate it. Makes a bit of a mockery of the expoxy special i am set on building.:thumb:

They also say the problem today is getting birch bark wide enough to start the base. There aint too many paper birch trees that get to grow that big any more.:(
 
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