How To Make A Native American Dugout Canoe?

Before European contact, indigenous peoples of North America relied on foot or dugout canoes for transportation. In the U.S. Southeast, Indigenous Americans used canoes made of hollowed logs of chestnut or pine. Naturalist James Stankiewicz demonstrates how Chesapeake Native Americans would have used fire and scraping implements to make these canoes. The Dugout Canoe Project, an experiment to use traditional Native American technologies, began as an experiment.

In Eastern North America, dugout canoes were typically made from a single log of chestnut or pine, hollowed out by carefully controlled fires. The fires were extinguished at intervals to scrape out the burned wood with wood, shell, or stone tools, giving the canoes a flat bottom with straight sides. The most common way to make canoes was the dugout canoe, and archaeologists rely on a few ethnohistoric sources that mention how Native Americans made dugout canoes using stone tools and fire.

In summary, dugout canoes have been a significant transportation method for indigenous peoples in the U.S. Southeast for at least 10,000 years. The Dugout Canoe Project, an interactive, bilingual exhibition produced by the Florida Museum of Natural History, provides a step-by-step guide on the ancient tradition of making these canoes.

How was the dugout canoe made?

Construction. Dugout canoes used by Indigenouspeoples were constructed from softwoods, such as cedar, basswood and balsam. The gigantic red cedar was the preferred wood used by the highly esteemed canoe builders. Drift logs were desirable but, if unavailable, trees were cut down using a stone maul (a type of tool) with bone, antler or stone chisels and controlled burning.

Hand adzes were used to shape the exterior form of the canoe, followed by hollowing out of the interior. Hot water was used to render the canoe pliable; wooden spreaders were then inserted between the gunwales to extend the beam of the canoe beyond the natural width of the log. High end pieces were carved separately and attached to the bow or stern using a sewing technique. Settlers using iron tools created smoothly crafted dugouts prior to the introduction of the plank-built canoe.

Canoes were colourfully decorated with animal designs using red ochre, black char and assorted animal teeth and shells. Propulsion was achieved using leaf-shaped single-blade paddles and square cedar mat sails.

Types of Dugout Canoes. Although there was considerable variation in size and shape of West Coast dugouts, two basic designs dominated the large, 10 to 15 m sea-going canoes. The Northern style used by Tlingit, Tsimshian, Nuxalk (Bella Coola) and Kwakwaka’wakw was perfected by the Haida of HaidaGwaii. It had a rounded hull, flaring sides and a strong sheer along the gunwales rising to high stem and stern projections. The extended prow culminated in a near vertical cutwater. The intrepid Haida seamen dominated coastal trade and their canoe was the most prized object of trade with the mainland FirstNations.

Can you make a dugout canoe out of pine?

Dugout Canoes, carved out of a single log, have had the same basic design for the past 7,000 years. Timucuan people of Florida made this 21-foot-long canoe about 500 years ago. Made from a single tree, dugouts transported people, goods, and ideas.

Pine canoe. Florida Museum photo by Kristen Grace.

Pine canoe. Florida Museum photo by Kristen Grace.

How long would it take to make a dugout canoe?

It took us about 10 days to transform the tree trunk into a canoe using modern tools and fire.

How were Indian canoes made?

The old canoes had tough light wooden frames with a skin of bark, usually birch. Sometimes the bark was put on in one piece and pleated to take up slack as it was contoured. Sometimes it was sewn in sections and caulked with spruce gum. Material selection, sewing, binding, and carving were all sophisticated. Designs varied among tribes, according to local conditions. Even kayaks in the far North, covered with animal skin instead of bark, reflected the same underlying principles of shape and propulsion.

Longfellow, fascinated by this art, devoted a whole chapter of his Song of Hiawatha to Hiawatha’s building of a canoe.

Now and then, we reach a sort of dead-end functional perfection. That’s far from true of our new electronic media. But it is true of most commonplace technology that we’ve accepted. By 1840 we’d created a style of wooden house construction in North America that changes little in a high-tech world. Our automobiles have long since ceased to change radically from year to year.

What is the best wood to make a dugout canoe?

In Eastern North America, dugout canoes were typically made from a single log of chestnut or pine. Carefully controlled fires were used to hollow out these logs. The fires were extinguished at intervals to scrape out the burned wood with a wood, shell or stone tools, giving the canoes a flat bottom with straight sides.

How thick is a dugout canoe?

Phil Johnston of Orofino has made more than twelve dugouts (including the one in the BLM Lewis and Clark Bicentennial poster), and this is his most recent, put in a pond just a week before our test put it in the rapids. It is 19′ 10″ long, 33″ wide and weighs about 1400 pounds, made of Ponderosa pine. The flat bottom is 28″ wide. It has minimum chines, about 3-4″ at 55-60 degrees, then a vertical side, 19″ high top to bottom. The gunwales are 2″ thick, and the bottom is 6″ thick, twice as much as Walt Marten’s. The bow is quite wide and blunt, though narrowed in half at the entry line. Phil, and the canoeists standing on the bank, were worried about the sharp, vertical sides of this new boat in the heavy cross currents, so we paddled this boat last.

Length overall: 19′ 10″ Width, outside: 33″ Width, bottom: 28″ (4/5 of width) Height, outside: 19″ Depth, inside: 13½” Thickness, gunwales: 2″; floor: 5½–6″ Chines: 55°–60°; 3–4″ Weight: c. 1400 pounds.

This is Phil’s “A” boat, one of his first. It is 33′ long, 33″ wide, and weighs 2400 pounds. The flat bottom is 17″ wide, only a little more than half the canoe’s width, which one would think might make it unstable, but it comes up to 45 degree straight chines a foot wide (huge and steep chines), then to vertical sides, 21″ top to bottom. The bottom is 7″ thick, and Phil said the canoe was very stable in easy water.

What are the steps of making a dugout canoe?

Dugout CanoeStep 1: Get a Log. We bought our log from a lumber company since we were in a hurry to make it on time for a museum. … Step 2: Tools Used: … Step 3: Make a Modle and Remove Bark: … Step 4: Cut, Saw, Adze… … Step 5: Shape. … Step 6: Finish Up… … Step 7: Get Your Dugout Canoe in the Water!

This dugout canoe was created for the Hayward Area Historical Society Museum. The canoe is part of the exhibition from the California Exhibition Resources Alliance (CERA).

This canoe was first carved as a model from a section of a willow. Then an actual full size canoe was created from a 30″ by 8′ redwood log. Choose spruce, pine, cedar, cottonwood or redwood.

We bought our log from a lumber company since we were in a hurry to make it on time for a museum. Try to find a downed tree to use as your log. Ask around; keep your eyes out; be ready, as you will want to work the log green since it carve much easier. Best to find your log next to water so you can get your boat into the water with out hauling. Some times you can find a log washed up on on a beach.

How were Aztec canoes made?

Most general-purpose canoes – those depicted in codices – averaged 14 feet in length, were dug out from a single tree trunk and had upturned ends. They were propelled by wooden pole or paddle.

This article is written largely with information from Mexicolore, and used with their gracious permission.We thank them for allowing us to share this story here.To learn more about the lives of the Aztec Indians, visit their web site here: Mexicolore.

Mexicolore (“Mexico – the Lore of the Land”) was established in 1980 by Graciela Sánchez and Ian Mursell. Together they have worked for over 35 years in partnership with museums, the BBC, schools, institutions, groups and individuals to educate about Mexico’s culture and people.

Don Antonio de Mendoza, the viceroy of New Spain, commissioned a book to be created in 1535 to document the history of the Aztec rulers and their conquests, a list of the tribute paid by the conquered, and a description of daily Aztec life, using traditional Aztec pictograms with Spanish commentary. This book is called the Codex Mendoza (a codex is an ancient manuscript).There are also several other Mesoamerican codex books, and together these comprise a priceless historical record of ancient Aztec life in the 16th century.

How much did the dugout canoe weigh?

Most of the “replica” Lewis and Clark dugout canoes used by re-enactors and sitting in parks or museums are roughly carved, crudely shaped, and weigh from 800 to 3,000 pounds. Actual nineteenth century dugouts can be smoothly finished, finely shaped, and weigh under 200 pounds.

The task was to haul supplies upstream. Lewis wanted light boats, and he, Clark and Gass would also have wanted efficient boats. This author expects that by the time the Lewis and Clark party got to the Snake, there was nothing primitive about either their canoes or their canoeing.

Based on historic designs, handling, and cargo capacity, the author proposes a dugout with round sides and a squared-off bottom. However, finding a tree 36″ in diameter and clean of major limbs for 33′ upwards, was probably not that easy.

How many people fit in a dugout canoe?

Generally the dugouts were about thirty feet long and up to three feet wide, with a capacity of between two and three tons, including four to six men, who probably knelt in order to keep the center of gravity low and prevent tipping. Empty, each canoe may have weighed as much as a ton.

Portaging Dugouts. On 16 June 1805, at the lower portage camp (near today’s Belt Creek) below the Great Falls of the Missouri Meriwether the captains received “a very unfavourable report” concerning the prospect of portaging around the five falls. “As the distance was too great to think of transporting the canoes and baggage on the men’s shoulders, we scelected six men, and ordered them to look out (for) some timber this evening, and early in the morning to set about making a parsel of truck wheels in order to convey our canoes and baggage over the portage.”

It maybe here worthy of remark that the Sales were hois(t)ed in the Canoes as the men were drawing them and the wind was great relief to them being Sufficently Strong to move the Canoes on the Trucks, this is Saleing on Dry land in every Sence of the word.

What type of wood to build a canoe?

Northern white cedar is absolutely the best wood for canoe ribs and planking. Its light weight, strength, flexibility and rot resistance can not be matched by any other wood. Although Maine has vast quantities of white cedar, it is still very difficult to find, select and sort out the knot- and defect-free lumber that is required for canoe construction.

The rough stock, ribs, and planking offered by Northwoods Canoe Company are from plain-sawn lumber, which means most of the pieces will have flat grain patterns. All wood is of the best premium canoe grade. A one inch thick board is normally thick enough to produce two ribs or thee pieces of planking. The edges of lumber are rough, so to produce a 3″-wide plank, it needs to start with a 4″-wide board to smooth up the sides to the 3″.

Northwoods Canoe Company has been able to obtain a treasured amount of quarter-sawn white cedar which is available ONLY as pre-cut planking, 3″ wide, 5/32″ thick, in six- to eight-foot lengths.