The Birch Bark Canoe

THE BIRCH BARK CANOE

The birch bark canoe was not the ingenious innovation of a single Canadian, but of an entire culture of people over the course of thousands of years. After the ice age, massive glaciers retreated to northern Canada. The melting water formed chains of lakes, rivers, and streams. By and by, aspen, spruce, and birch trees emerged along these new shorelines, building what would be the legacy of the canoe.
By 5,000 years ago, prehistoric people had learned how to use raw materials from the forest to build canoes that were strong enough to survive the roughest rapids but also light and perfectly manoeuvrable, which was especially convenient in shallow waterways. Birch bark was the perfect material to build canoes out of. Not only was it lightweight and smooth, but it was also waterproof and resilient. As well, the birch tree was found in almost every part of Canada, except for the western sub-arctic region, where spruce bark was used as substitute...