Making a Birch Bark Canoe

Days, weeks, and now months into making a birch bark canoe, the daily practice of woodworking continues in the remote high country of Marquette County in Upper Michigan. The manufacture of the components for such a craft take hundreds of hours to complete. A birch bark canoe is made from a variety of plant matter:

Weeks were spent with simple tools- a forest axe, a cooked knife, an awl. An intimate understanding of each species is necessary in order to acquire the desired results. The craftsmanship required is ancient in origin, starting thousands of years ago, carried on today by people like John Jungwirth, with whom I am living, working, and studying under.

How do you make a birch bark canoe? Well, here is a sample of some processes:

You find a very old White Cedar tree, one that has grown straight and is without out branches for as many feet as possible, and you split it in half, and then in half again, and so on until you have very long stock, wood that is good for gunwales. Here John inspects a 23 foot long section that has had the sapwood and heartwood subtracted.








Other parts requiring prodigious lengths of straight grain cedar include the sheathing and ribs. Here, a White Cedar along the Dead River has been split into rib stock.

The ribs are then carved into the shape desired and then split, resulting in two roughed out pieces which are then fashioned to an even thickness and elacticity, planed flat and smooth on the bottom, and beveled on top. The shavings accumulate.

The roots of the Black Spruce are sought after, and having dug them up, are split and detailed into cordage, which is used to lash the Birch Bark to the gunwales.

A building frame is constructed on a prepared bed in which the sacred-holy Birch Bark is rolled out, and then pulled up and around the building frame, staked with batons into place, and sewed to the side panels and the gunwales.

The process is ongoing!

Check out the progress and more pictures at:

Making a Birch Bark Canoe