Books, Magazines
Bark canoes: a bibliography from Upsala University in Sweden
The Wooden Canoe Journal from the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association often has articles and news about birchbark canoe building
Wilderness Journey by Ian and Sally Wilson who spent a year travelling as voyageurs, in a birchbark canoe and by dog cariole
Building Techniques
Joe River's pictures of building a birchbark canoe
The construction of the birch bark canoe - from the White Oak Society, White Oak Learning Centre and White Oak Fur Post, Deer River, Minnesota.
Construction of a birchbark canoe from Squeedunk Kayaks
How to Build Birchbark
Canoe in Japanese with good drawings
Builders
Bigfork Canoe Trails, Minnesota
A Developing Talent: Steve Cayard - an article about this builder from Wooden Canoe Journal
David and Ernestine Gidmark, Maniwaki, Quebec
Joe River, Wakefield, Quebec
Henri Vaillancourt, Greenville, New Hampshire
Westport Canoes - Jack LaPointe builds beautiful cedar canvas canoes and helped me with building my birchbark canoe
Tom Byers - Wood River Canoe Company
History
Canoes and the fur trade from the White Oak Society, White Oak Learning Centre and White Oak Fur Post, Deer River, Minnesota.
Samuel de Champlain on birchbark canoes, from the Canadian Museum of Civilization
Canoe History from Water Spirits Miniature Canoes
The Alexander Mackenzie Voyageur Route - the web site comes complete with digital Voyageur songs
The Hudson's Bay Company Archives
The Edwin Tappan Adney page by Jim Wheaton who is writing Adney's biography
Miscellaneous
An Interview with David & Ernestine Gidmark
Gary Hodgson's Work Boat- This Adirondack forest ranger uses his birchbark canoe on the job
The Patagonian Canoe, Erhard Kraus' introduction to making canoes, Patagonian style. They're not made of birchbark but...
The Enduring Craftsmanship of Wisconsin's Native Peoples: The Ojibwe Birch-bark Canoe
Exhaustion and Fulfilment: The Ascetic in a Canoe, an essay by former Canadian Prime Minster Pierre Elliot Trudeau
Some great quotes about canoes, courtesy of Tripper Dave Robinson
Some more great canoe quotes from canoe.ca including the classic from Pierre Berton "A true Canadian is one who can make love in a canoe without tipping" and Philip Chester's answer "Anyone can make love in a canoe, it's a Canadian who knows enough to take out the centre thwart!"
The Canadian Heritage Rivers System - need somewhere to go paddling?
Musuems and exhibits
The Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough, Ontario
Native Watercraft in Canada, an exhibit at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull, Québec
Old Fort William in Thunder Bay, Ontario
“Give Me of Your Bark, O Birch-Tree!”: Accounts of the Canoe in Exploration and Travel Literature, an exhibit at the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis
The Bark Canoe Store's list of some museums with birchbark canoes
Flying canoes at the Peabody Museum
Organizations
Birchbark Canoes at the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association Web Site. The WCHA has many birchbark canoe builders as members (including me) and holds a fun assembly every summer where you can get together with other like-minded people
Pictures
Pictures from the Mi'kmaq Portraits Collection:
Photographs from the Canadian Heritage Gallery:
A replica of a Beothuk birchbark canoe from the Newfoundland Museum
Back to birchbark canoes
© Judy Kavanagh, 2001