Birchbarks at Batchewang
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
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From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Birchbarks at Batchewang, 2012.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Contemporary birch-bark builder Erik Simula working on a bark canoe in 2009.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Erik Simula's canoe, Nama, and his dog, Kitigan, at Mountain Lake in the Arrowhead Region of Minnesota.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Solitary paddler sits in a birch-bark canoe at Moose Factory, Ontario.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Edwin Tappan Adney's model of a Beothuk Canoe.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
The outer hulls of bark canoes were often engraved with symbols, animal silhouettes, and geometric shapes. Bark collected in the winter was purportedly better for such etchings than summer bark. Edwin Tappan Adney featured these designs on a canoe built in Old Town, Maine and exhibited at the New York Sportsman’s Show in 1897.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Phyllop Peter and his wife paddle a Kutenai canoe on Kootenay Lake in 1922.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Birch trees at Bognor Marsh near Georgian Bay off Lake Huron.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
The Ojibwe (also called Chippewa) built different styles of canoes, including this distinctive long-nose model.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Birch-bark baskets, like this Ojibwe example from Grand Portage, are used for winnowing wild rice.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Birch had a number of uses for native tribes. Two Ojibwe women, Mary Bigwind and Maggie Skinaway, make birch vessels for maple sap, which could be made into syrup, supplying the tribe with its sugar.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
The Cree were excellent birch-bark builders, as seen in this boat dating from the period 1875–1900.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Black spruce trees, from which roots were grubbed and made into sewing materials, are plentiful in northern and northeastern forests near birch trees.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
The setting of a frame for a birch-bark canoe involved preparing the ground, driving in stakes, and sliding in the bark and attaching a frame in the general shape of the boat. Photograph taken ca. 1885 at an Ojibwe camp.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Splitting the bark from a down tree took a light touch and patience.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Native builders would roll the stripped birch bark into a backpack of sorts, secure it with roots, and carry it back to the canoe-making camp. This individual with the pack is identified as Cheemaun of an Ojibwe tribe in Wisconsin.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
A tray or pouch made of birch bark was used to carry hardened pieces of specially prepared spruce gum (sap mixed with animal fat and ash), which could be chewed or heated and used to repair canoes when on a trip.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
By the mid-twentieth century, native builders were working to pass on their knowledge before the skills were lost.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
A crooked knife was an essential tool in the shaping of ribs, sheathing, thwarts, and other parts of the canoe.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
In 1939, Ojibwe tribal members at Grand Portage, near the border between the United States and Canada on Lake Superior, completed a birch-bark canoe in the traditional manner as part of a Works Progress Administration arts program. Here a headboard is installed.