building birchbark replica

[Cal LeBlanc]

Just wondering if its possible to build a replica of a traditional birch bark canoe with materials other than birch bark. Perhaps wood/canvas. Birch bark is hard to come by in my part of the country(Louisiana)and would probably be expensive to obtain. Has anyone done such a project?

Cal

 

[Dave Wermuth]

Anything is possible

Hi Cal, check out the builder's suppliers directory/michigan/Baker's custom canoes. He had one in the shop (garage) one day when I was there. It was 24' I believe. Some boyscouts pulled a "River Runs Through It" over some waterfalls and Brian was putting back a good size portion of its bottom.

 

[Douglas Ingram]

During the latter years of bark canoe building, especially in northern areas, Cree builders are documented as building their canoes with canovas, using the same methods as building with bark. You can see the process in Adney's book.

The photo shows a w/c canoe trimmed to look like a bark canoe, and was done up for a film shoot.

So the short answer is Yes.