![]() ![]() With so much to offer, its admirers believe it should not become a mere collector’s item or museum piece but should continue in use, a link with the past for the future. Because of its construction without a keel, its handling is regarded as a special art but, light and responsive, its mastery provides much pleasure and satisfaction. The canoe still provides a severe test of the paddlers skill and sense of balance. The honey-colored bark and the irregular gummed seams and edges are pleasing to the eye, while the woodsy odor of the drying materials are tantalizing to the olfactory senses. ![]() The finished birch bark canoe remains a work of natural beauty since none of its surfaces are preserved in any way. The secrets can only be learned with patience. His final success is assured because he has the “feel” of materials he knows the natural stress and shrinkage of green materials he understands the allowances he must take to fashion a craft with the graceful, sweeping, curving lines that create the traditional symmetry of the Indian canoe. The experienced canoe-builder goes about his task with sure deftness, often with no shelter. Ferdy Goode paddling an Ojibwe-style birch bark canoe photo by Walt Jones
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