Step 5 Birch Bark Canoe

By Kevin Brownlee, past Curator of Archaeology

On day 7 Myra and I awoke to another beautiful day. We decided that we would complete all the sewing, attaching the gunwale caps and final trimming but would not pitch the canoe. Grant had offered to complete this last stage after we returned to Winnipeg.

We all marvelled at the beauty of the canoe now that it has the final shape. It is amazing that in one week we could turn bark and wood into such an amazing watercraft. Clearly there is nothing “Printive” about a birch bark canoe. Grant spoke about how when Europeans arrived to North America they came from a long tradition of boat building. However Europeans found them unsuitable to the navigate the waterways of the boreal forest and quickly adopted the birch bark canoe.

Later that Fall on a vacation from the office I took the canoe into northern Manitoba for the inaugural launch into the clear waters of the Canadian Shield. Paddling on the lake I realized this is probably the first time in over a hundred years that anyone has paddled a birch bark canoe in the area. What an amazing gift from relatives from the south.

By Kevin Brownlee, past Curator of Archaeology

On Sunday we started to insert the planking and ribs into the canoe. We started at the end and worked towards the middle. The pairs of ribs are for either end, keeping the shape identical front to back. A finished birch bark canoe can technically be paddled with either end as the stern or bow. We decided to use two different colours of spruce roots at each end to differentiate, the bow we used light spruce roots and the stern we used dark spruce roots. All photos in this blog are the property of Kevin Brownlee (personal collection).

It was truly amazing watching Grant hammer in the ribs. Each was measured, cut to length, the end was tapered and then it was hammered into place. The tension put on the bark as the ribs were inserted is amazing and the canoe truly takes form.

The last rib is in the very middle and the wood was drenched with hot water to help the wood bend. It looks like the rib should break and then it slips into place.

By Kevin Brownlee, past Curator of Archaeology

By Kevin Brownlee, past Curator of Archaeology

Over the course of the next 6 days all efforts were on completing the Birch Bark canoe. Each morning I would get up at 6:00 am and review my notes and look at the canoe in order to see if they were complete. Once I updated my notes, and had coffee and breakfast, work would start on the canoe.

Since Myra and I were both beginners, we were given the task of sewing all the seams together with the 500 feet of finished spruce roots. While we worked on that, Grant focused his attention on the wooden structure of the canoe including the inwales, outwales, gunwale caps, thwarts, ribs, planking, headboard, and stem pieces.

All photographs from this post are the property of Kevin Brownlee (personal collection).