Home > Ojibwa Transportation > Build a Birchbark Canoe Step 1
Building a Birch Bark Canoe
First Find the Right Tree
One summer, a long time ago, I watched my grandmother show my parents how to make a birch bark canoe. My grandfather had died the previous winter, and looking back, I think Kokum realized that she'd better get a move on if she was ever going to pass on all the tricks of her trade.
She made the announcement one Spring evening after watching a huge flock of geese fly over our canvas covered cedar strip canoes and land noisily near the point of reeds that sheltered the bay.
Without consultation she said, "It's time to make a birch bark canoe. We'll start tomorrow."
Next morning my mother packed a lunch, then armed with a bow saw, an axe, a hatchet and the inevitable hunting knives we set off looking for a birch tree that would provide us with a single piece of birch bark about sixteen to twenty feet long and about four or five feet wide.
Nowadays finding the tree would be the hardest part in the process of making a birch bark canoe! Useable canoes can be made from a selection of smaller pieces of birch bark by lacing them together with strips of spruce root and sealing with spruce gum, but the result is never quite as strong because more seams increase the possibility of more leaks.
When Kokum finally found a tree she thought might be appropriate - one that not only grew tall but had long ago shed any small branches from its lower trunk - she told us that we had to test the bark itself before we cut it down. Not all trees provided good canoe bark. Sometimes it was too dry and brittle. The test was to cut a piece off and twist and turn it this way and that. If it didn't crack it was good enough to make a birch bark canoe.
When the tree passed the twisting and turning test then Kokum talked to the tree and thanked it for providing us with a canoe.
Then we cut it down.
