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).

By Kevin Brownlee, past Curator of Archaeology

I woke up at 6:00 am to get a good start on the day. Grant was already up and we decided to get out to the spruce bog early to gather roots. We needed to gather 250 feet of roots to make 500 feet of finished split roots. The estimate was 5 feet of roots for each rib, 40 ribs require 200 feet and the seams to be sewn would require the other 50 feet.

The bog was relatively dry and the moss was like a thick mattress over the spruce roots. Digging spruce roots does not hurt the trees.  The bog where we gathered the roots has been used by Grant for many years and the trees are very healthy. After a few hours we gathered 250 feet of roots and we headed back to Grant and Christy’s place to prepare the roots.

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

The roots were boiled to speed up the peeling process, once they boiled for an hour Myra and I began to peal and split the roots.

Jim and Grant made the building frame and started to prepare the bark. Only two sheets of birch bark were used to make the canoe. Once the sheets were cut to match each other and the building frame was placed over top weighted down with cinder blocks. The bark was cut from the outer edge to the building frame (called gores) to allow the bark to form fit the canoe shape. The bark was then folded up and held in place by wooden stakes.

We finished pealing the roots and splitting them before the end of the day and Grant started making the inner gunwales, outer gunwales and gunwale caps. While we made great progress on the canoe in one day of work it was far from looking like a canoe.

By Kevin Brownlee, past Curator of Archaeology

The best way to understand any skill or expertise is by trying it out. Experimental archaeology attempts to replicate past activities to improve our understanding and interpretation of archaeological material. My interest in experimental archaeology is broad since I am interested in all aspects of past technology, working stone, clay, bone, antler, wood, bark, and hides.

In some cases I am replicating tools that I have recovered or items from the collection in other cases I am learning from Elders and knowledgeable community members on traditional activities. I have learned how to tan hides and make birch bark baskets from the First Nation community members. In other cases I have learned on my own how to make bone and antler tools. Here are a few pictures when I used a replica antler pick (not original) to see if it would chop through lake ice at -30.

This past August my wife Myra and I were taught how to make a birch bark canoe by Jim Jones Jr. and Grant Goltz who are colleagues of ours in Minnesota. Jim Jones Jr. is an Ojibway Archaeologist and member of the Leech Lake Band working for the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council. Grant Goltz is a consulting archaeologist and is a master of many skills and makes traditional First Nation pottery, birch bark canoes, kayaks, furniture, and guitars, to name a few. Grant started making canoes in 1995 when he and his wife Christy taught an archaeology field school. The students learned how to make a canoe during the 6 weeks of the field school and everyone involved gained a better appreciation of this ancient craft. Since then he has made 20 – 30 birch bark canoes. The most famous was 27.5 feet long and was paddled from Portland Oregon to York Factory Manitoba.

We began on a warm afternoon on the property of Grant Goltz and Christy Cain. We examined many books on the subject of birch bark canoes in order to decide what kind or shape to make. None of the books that Grant had provided good examples of northern Boreal Forest Cree canoe so we decided to make one that I found esthetically pleasing. It was called an early Algonquian Canoe “from the Ottawa River valley”. We made a few adjustments to the plan making a 15 foot canoe, 38 inches wide at the middle thwart. We also raised the height of the canoe at both the stern and bow and flattened the bottom somewhat following images of model canoes.

As we headed for bed that night Grant told Myra and I to get a good night sleep as we were going to be up early the next morning to gather spruce roots before the heat of the mid day.