Canoes: A Natural History in North America

The Manner of Makinge Their Boates, Theodor de Bry, 1590.

The building department at the Canadian Canoe Company factory, ca. late nineteenth century.

Sawdust litters the floor of the workshop at the Canadian Canoe Company factory as builders fashion canoes in distinctive shapes.

A coat of varnish was one of the final steps in canoe construction at the Canadian Canoe Company factory.

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.

Two Nomad decked sailing canoes under construction at the Rushton boat shop, ca. 1900.

Planking is applied to a pair of Indian Girl canoes in the Rushton Boat Shop, early 20th century.

Workers at the Rushton Boat Shop in 1905. J. Henry Rushton stands at the lower left.

Rushton Indian Girl canoes in the sanding room, ca. 1908.

Nelson Brown, master craftsman, foreman, and the longest tenured employee at the Rushton canoe factory, shapes a paddle in the wood-and-canvas building room in 1908.

Finishing work was done by hand on canoes built at the Old Town factory during the 1920s and 30s.

Prior to varnishing, Old Town employees used a vacuum system to remove dirt and debris that was left over from sanding, ca. 1922.

Splitting the bark from a down tree took a light touch and patience.

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.

Old-growth cedar trees are immense and can provide the materials for several boats. In this photograph, four different canoes are being hewn from one red cedar log at Olympic Loop, Queets River, Washington. Photograph by Dale O. Northrup, c. 1930.

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.

The Linkcanoe was another attempt, in the 1940s, at perfecting what was already a pretty perfectly designed boat.

By the mid-twentieth century, native builders were working to pass on their knowledge before the skills were lost.

The pioneering chemist Stephanie Kwolek holds the liquid crystal polymer that became Kevlar.

Bill Reid and Associates Creating a Dugout Canoe, 1985.

Contemporary birch-bark builder Erik Simula working on a bark canoe in 2009.

Napolean Sanford with a work in progress next to the Carib Council House in Salybia, Dominica.

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.

A crooked knife was an essential tool in the shaping of ribs, sheathing, thwarts, and other parts of the canoe.

Stakes are planted in the general shape of the canoe; a frame in the shape of a gunwale is dropped in with temporary thwarts attached.

A sheet of bark is placed on the ground, the frame is set on top and weighted with rocks. The stakes are temporarily moved aside.

The stakes are put back and the bark shaped inside of them. Note that the stakes are now tied at their tops. Long battens are used to strengthen the frame.

The bark is in place and the gunwale frame is lifted into position. The sheer height is shown in cutaway (a). Blocks (b) are placed under the ends to provide the rocker.

Shaping the ends and sewing is done upside down, on sawhorses.

Sheathing and ribs are added to give the canoe its final shape.

The parts of an open gunwale wood-and-canvas canoe.

Dylan Schoelzel makes wood-and-canvas canoes at Salmon Falls Canoe in Massachusetts. Note the metal bands on the canoe form at left.

Kevlar fibers are used in a variety of applications, perhaps most famously in bullet-proof vests.

A worker at Old Town Canoes puts the finishing touches on a fiberglass model.

Paddles were all handmade in classic shapes at the Old Town Canoe Company factory.