THURSDAY THOUGHTS–Oh, my goodness, you just have to watch this video I came across about building a birch bark canoe using only small, non-motorized hand tools, the traditional way of the elders.
This was a Canadian-made hour-long film with a few subtitles in English, but actually not much text is required.
Get a cup of coffee and get comfortable, because you are not going to want to miss this step-by-step video showing how to make a birch bark canoe from start to finish!
Course, you can pause it and come back again later, but I was glued to the screen the whole time. Enjoy!
I really enjoyed watching the 67-year-old Native go through all the steps of building a birch bark canoe: felling the large, straight birch tree, stripping off the bark, pulling, and then cutting and processing spruce root for lacing, as well as making the canoe shaping forms.
As final touches, he applied a pitch or glue to the seams, stitched the spruce root lacings, and carved designs on the side of the birch bark canoe.
Watching him and his wife (I presume) paddle off to do some fishing near sunset was a very nice and touching end to this spectacularly insightful and fascinating process of an ancient craft. Thank you to the producer and of course, the craftsman.
What did you think of this old-time craft and way of building a birch bark canoe? Have you ever watched the process before?
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~~Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much ~~
Happy Weaving, until next time!
ever try porcupine quill on birch bark?i have 40yrs of itdo classes..porcupineems,scatered all over the place..
No, I haven’t yet tried using porcupine quills on the birch bark baskets, but have seen some really beautiful ones in the past. Where are you located and where do you teach?