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Birch Bark Canoe Project

Bill Buxton
www.billbuxton.com
Started:  August 12, 2008
Last Modified:  Nov. 3rd, 2008

Introduction

In the winter of 2007/8 my interest in the history of the fur trade in Canada morphed into a plan to do a trip in northern Saskatchewan, from Lac La Ronge to Cumberland House (for route descriptions, see the following:  La Ronge-Maligne, Maligne-Amisk, Amisk-Cumberland).  The reason for this particular route is that in 1939 my father (also William Buxton) spent time up there as a teacher at a place called Pelican Narrows, where he helped establish one of the first non-residential schools in the north (that is, a school in the community, where the kids could live with their parents, where they could go to school while remaining exposed to their culture).

 
Pelican Narrows in 1939.  The square fronted white building on the left is the old Revillon Freres trading post where the school was established.  The building to the right was where the post manager had lived.  This was to be my father's residence.  However, when he entered, he promptly fell through the rotten floor boards into the cellar.  After a few nights camping out, he secured the use of a shack used by the Forestry Service.

Photo:  Downes, P.G. (1943).  Sleeping Island.  New York:  Coward-McCann.

The second thing about this trip was that I decided that I had to do it in a traditional birch bark canoe.  Now this is something that I have a fair bit of book learning about.  On the other hand, at the time of the decision, I neither had one, nor had ever been in one.  So, the first step in the plan was to find a builder who would tolerate me as an apprentice, and get one built that would be suitable for this particular trip.  The story of this makes up the start of the page that follows.

As for the trip itself, it is scheduled for mid-August - early September 2009 - a time picked to meet three objectives:

  1. Soon enough to be able to share it with my father through the photos
  2. Late enough to get the canoe built, become familiar with it, and properly plan the trip
  3. Late enough in the season to have minimal mosquitoes yet still some remnants of summer.

The Canoe

One of the first things that I did in my search for a builder was contact James Raffan and Jeremy Ward at the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough.  James is the museum's curator and a prolific writer on canoes, travel and the fur trade.  We had previously corresponded about his books, among other things.  Jeremy is a well known builder who keeps the craft alive at the museum, as well as look after the collection.  Through them, I found a builder in Northern Ontario named Tom Byers.  (For Tom's web site, click here;  for an article about him, click here.)

Tom and I spoke on the phone in June of 2008 and came to an agreement whereby he would build me a canoe, and that I would spend as much time up north with him helping.  I wanted to learn as much as I could, and also wanted to know enough to be able to maintain and repair the canoe - especially when out in the wild.

The next step was to figure out what I wanted.  The basic constraints were clear - defined by the chosen route.  I needed a boat that was suited for traveling on open water, yet not a dog when traveling on moving water.  We settled on a 17' canoe with moderate rocker, and a not too-flat bottom.  That was the starting point.  Since the beauty of the canoe is in the lines, the question then came down to specifics.  Hence, we both buried ourselves in the bible of traditional canoe craft:

Adney, Edwin Tappan & Chapelle, Howard, I. (1964).  The Bark and Skin Boats of North America.  Washington:  Smithsonian Institution.

What we settled on was the design used by the Tête de Boule (Attikamekw), of Québec, found on pages 109 - 110 in Adney:
Adney & Tappan (1964), p. 109
Adney & Tappan (1964), p. 110

Having made these decisions, the only thing left was for Tom to head out in the bush and start collecting materials - in perhaps the worst mosquito season in memory.

The canoe, which was started around the end of July 2008, and finished in early October, is shown in the photo below.

 

At least Insofar as I was able to do so on my three trips up to Northern Ontario to help, I tried my best to document the construction process.  The results can be accessed via the links below.

Diary Pages

The following pages document the project.  I will add to them as things progress.  Each will be a collection of photos with captions explaining what is going on.  You can jump to any page by hitting the link below, or step from page to page by clicking on their "next" and "previous" links.

References/Links

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