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Building a Birch Bark Canoe Photo Documentary

Birch bark canoe

Birch bark canoe

Birch bark canoe

Randy tells us what is involved and we make a plan

Felling the tree

Cutting the notch

Measuring the tree for the longest canoe part

Bucking up the tree

Hauling logs to the building site

Hoisting logs onto the sawing frame

Making boards with a pit saw

Splitting out rib blanks

Shaving lots of ribs

Making even more ribs

Storing ribs in water to keep them from drying out

Randy saws out slats or sheathing

Making big boards into smaller boards

Surfacing slats or sheathing

Randy stokes the fire under the steamer

Ribs come out of the steamer

Randy bends the first rib

Bending ribs around the form

Beautifully bent ribs

Making the bottom frame

Measuring ribs off the bottom frame

Setting building frame stakes and morticing inwales

Finishing the gunwales

Bending the tips of the gunwales

Weighing down the gunwales in prep for drying

Sawing out blanks for stem and stern pieces

Walking around with a ladder looking for the perfect tree

Climbing up to make the cut

Bark begins to come away

Bark almost free

Carefully pass it down

A beautiful piece of bark

Roll it up

Tie it up

Gunwales come out of the bending form

Gunwales bottom frame layed out with stakes

Selecting ribs

Ribs labeled and ready to go

Bark selected and layed out with bottom frame

Weighing down the bottom frame

Green birch logs for additional weight

Notch inwales for ribs

Pull up bark and cut in gores

Pull up bark and put in stakes

Putting in the inwales

Putting in the thwarts

Canoe ready for upper panels

Slip in top panels

Canoe ready for outwales

Strip & split spruce root

Splitting spruce root

Peeled split root soaking

Lashing gunwales with spruce root

Lashed gunwale

Thwart lashed to gunwale

Melting spruce pitch

Strained out bark branches

Melted down animal fat is mixed in

Fitted stem & stern pieces

Sewed stem & stern

Stem sewing complete

Completed sewing from top

Turned over canoe

Sewing the bottom

Putting in some sheathing ribs

Ready for more ribs

Putting in the last of the sheathing ribs

All the ribs are in, bark is fully stretched

Turning it over and checking the results

Heating up the caulking

Caulking the seams

Caulking the seams

Caulking the seams

Ready for launching

The builders

Elias is the first to try it out

Lauri loves it!

Jim heads to St. Mary's

The Folk School Fairbanks
2300 Airport Way, Cabin 66, Fairbanks
P.O. Box 83572, Fairbanks, AK 99708
907-457-1219
info@folk.school

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