Birch bark canoes were used by Native American Indians in the temperate parts of North America for transportation, fishing, hunting, and warcraft. The canoes were made from birch bark, spruce roots, cedar, and spruce or rubber pitch. The construction process involved building a cedar frame, fitting bark around it, sewing it up with fir root, introducing cedar foils for rigidity, and waterproofing the seams with spruce pitch.
Native American Indians who inhabited the more temperate parts of North America often traveled the lakes, rivers, and coasts via birch bark canoe. This region encompasses what is now southeastern Canada, New England, New York, and into the Great Lakes region, where white birch trees proliferate. As its name implies, a birch bark canoe uses the bark of the white birch as a major component of its construction.
A canoe is a light, highly manoeuvrable vessel, generally tapered at each end, and propelled by a person wielding a wooden paddle. All canoes are direct descendants of the traditional birch bark canoe. Kayaks are another type of boat invented, designed, and built by American Indians. These vessels were used for transportation, cargo transportation, fishing, hunting, and occasionally as warcraft.
Materials traditionally used to build birch bark canoes, in addition to bark, consist of spruce roots, which are used for stitching the bark, cedar for rigid framing and inner lining, and spruce or rubber pitch, used to waterproof seams. These materials were, and still are, abundant in the northeastern part of North America and elsewhere. Most of the materials for these native canoes were collected in early summer when the spruce sap was working, and the light, malleable bark was especially easy to peel from the birches.
Although time consuming and labor intensive, building a birch bark canoe is a fairly straightforward process. A cedar frame is built, and bark is fitted around this frame, held in place by wooden stakes. Stiff pieces of cedar, prows, are inserted into each end, and long thin strips of cedar are placed on each side of the upper edge of the bark to form fights.
At this point, the tedious work of sewing up the bark continues. Long pieces of fir root are used as a needle and thread in the ribs to sew, slits made in the bark to facilitate fitting over the frame. Birch bark is also sewn onto each end of the canoe. It may be necessary to sew more strips of bark together, before attaching the rams, to ensure that the entire frame is covered.
Cedar foils, or braces are introduced to give the canoe rigidity, and a cedar liner is placed to firm up the entire vessel. About 30 to 40 pieces of cedar 3/8 inch (approx. 1 cm) square length are then steamed, bent into a U shape, and spaced along the hull for rigidity. The ribs are inserted over the lining and the ends are wedged under the gunwales. Then the entire container is waterproofed at the seams with spruce pitch.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
