Dug Out Canoe

[Kepis]

No don't get excited, i haven't made a dugout canoe (yet ).

Was following this series on the Townsends YouTube channel, thought members might find it interesting.

 

[crosslandkelly]

Great vids, I really enjoyed them.

 

[Janne]

Interesting.
Check out the movie ‘Happy People, a year in the Taiga’ narrated by Werner Herzog for another way to make one.

 

[Sundowner]

Very interesting, just a wee bit too heavy to carry !!!

 

[Janne]

The technique I referred to being shown in that documentary, is still being used, and produces vessels that are very usable and seaworthy, which this one is not.

I doubt very much they created such clumsy 'things' (as in OP's vid) in the past, to be frank. Archeology has found quite elegant vessels, all around the world..

 

[Robson Valley]

I think on the water, the simple expedient of a little raft of 3 logs lashed together might get me to where I needed to go.
Clumsy, heavy and hard to paddle and steer but it would and has worked.
The bigger challenge would be the paleo effort to cut down the trees and dress the logs.

To this day, The Haida people and others in the Pacific Northwest create cedar boats some 40 - 60' in length.
Carved from single cedar logs, these boats are quite seaworthy.
It is known that the Haida raided and traded all down the Pacific west coast,
some claiming that they went as far south as Peru. (Peruvian potatoes are cultivated by First Nations Tlingit people in Alaska.)
Mungo Martin (Kwakwaka'Wakw) was said to have built more than 40 of those cedar boats.

Here in the interior, the boats were dug-outs carved from large Cottonwood logs.
The most recent one was completed in Prince George, BC (Nechako/Faser junction)about 2015 or so.
I don't remember if the First Nations people used fire or not.
Must be really hard to burn a fresh wet log.