Canoes: A Natural History in North America

Neuzil, Mark; Sims, Norman

Mark Neuzil and Norman Sims

2016

This is the story of the canoe, that singular American artifact so little changed over time. Featured here are canoes old and new, from birch bark to dugout to carbon fiber; the people who made them; and the adventures they shared. With features of technology, industry, art, and survival, the canoe carries us deep into the natural and cultural history of North America.

Follow author Mark Neuzil on Twitter: @mrneuzil

Canoeists paddling a Wenonah Kevlar canoe above a rapids in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.

Shooting the Rapids

From Introduction

Canoeists paddling a Wenonah Kevlar canoe above a rapids in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.

Border Lakes Outfitting Company

From Introduction

Sigurd Olson’s Border Lakes Outfitting Company, April 4, 1940.

A color photograph of four birch-bark canoes in the water near rocks and grass on the shore.

Birchbarks at Batchewang

From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes

Birchbarks at Batchewang, 2012.

A color photograph of a pictograph on a rock wall.

Quetico Pictograph

From Chapter 7: The Human-Powered Movement

Evidence of travel by canoe exists in the form of pictographs hundreds of years old in the Quetico region of Canada. Scientists are not in agreement about who made the images—or even when—but the painting of people in a boat is unmistakable.