BWCA Birch bark canoe ? - why the high ends? Boundary Waters Gear Forum


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Birch bark canoe ? - why the high ends?

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Member: soarky

Last Visit: 05/24/2013 09:18AM
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Drab

06/30/2012 03:05PM

In preparation for her first bwca trip my daughter got some books from the library. Looking at painting of early birch bark canoes shows them with really high stems. You wonder how the paddler could even see over them to know where they were going.

Had bow and stern decks not been thought of yet? Or is there some practical advantage to high bows and sterns?

Or does birch bark construction not lend itself to using decks?

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fraxinus

06/30/2012 05:11PM

I think that it was the birch bark construction that led to a higher profile bow and stern stem. A guy named Edwin Adney thankfully spent a lot of time in the late 1800's travelling the North documenting bark canoe designs and construction. If you scroll down on this link it shows how the stem pieces were constructed. Edwin Adney book

The bark was lashed to the frame, I suppose fastening a deck plate would have added the problem of how to fasten it at the point where the gunnels and stem piece meet.

A great book on birchbark canoes is "The Survival of the Bark Canoe" by John McPhee, not a scholarly treatise, but a recollection of a trip in Maine in bark canoes.

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yellowcanoe

06/30/2012 11:18PM

Not all birchbark canoes have high ends. The ones made around here were Malecite and had low sheer line. The Beothuk canoes actually were higher in the middle than the ends. Even within a native community there were many models of canoe..Not unlike the selection we have today.

one type of Malecite canoe

The Kootenay birchbarks were sturgeon nosed..

Kootenay canoe

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gutmon

07/01/2012 08:12AM

Thanks, YC. Those are some beautiful canoes.

"The trouble with the world isn't that people know too little, but that they know so much that just ain't so." Mark Twain

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wetcanoedog

07/01/2012 09:50AM

i have those books and they are great for a look at how canoes were made to fit every type of canoeing nook.i don't have a book handy but there is a canoe that is shaped like a banana for working thru rapids.
on the question about high ends,i think i read in one of the fur trade books that they were made that way do they could be turned over on the side to make a shelter. link to a birchbark canoe siye

it's just a level trail thru the woods.

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gutmon

07/01/2012 10:11AM

quote wetcanoedog: "i have those books and they are great for a look at how canoes were made to fit every type of canoeing nook.i don't have a book handy but there is a canoe that is shaped like a banana for working thru rapids.
on the question about high ends,i think i read in one of the fur trade books that they were made that way do they could be turned over on the side to make a shelter. link to a birchbark canoe siye " thanks! Great link!

"The trouble with the world isn't that people know too little, but that they know so much that just ain't so." Mark Twain

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yellowcanoe

07/01/2012 10:50AM

Drool Time!

Sportscars of the birchbark world

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Drab

07/01/2012 11:59AM

It is all very interesting. Thanks for the links.

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Benutzer

07/02/2012 08:44AM

Someone posted this here before, but it's worth putting up here again. This is an hour long NFB of Canada documentary from 1971 that shows every step of building a birch bark canoe. Very cool footage, and a priceless piece of history. Wish they'd have been able to do this with all sorts of old and forgotten skills.

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