Dugout canoe

[Qayaq]

I watched a video today of someone carving a dugout canoe using stone axes and adzes, which reminded me of a dugout canoe I found on an island east of Red Lake, Ontario while prospecting in the early 80's. The one I found had been hollowed out with a chainsaw and one cut in the bottom went a hair too deep, which caused a not-so-slow leak. The boat had been sitting in the bush for some time judging by the vegetation growing around it. I gave it a little test paddle and was lucky I didn't roll it. It had a name carved in the side which read MID-NOR.



I was thinking of going out to find a large enough tree at home and see if I could manage to make something paddleable. I'll have to try to find out how it should be shaped to give it more stability than something used in a log rolling contest.

 

[Canotrouge]

Cool stuff. Up here, Yukon, they say they use to make them out of large cotton wood. But I never seen anything on it. A god movie that shows how to make them is Happy people a year in the taïga.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIdHG9zyrtE I can't seem to find part one....

 

[Canotrouge]

Here is a short part of it....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvrNqyX7XPQ

 

[Mihun09]

The neighbours here have a very large cottonwood tree they say they will have cut down eventually. If they do, I'll ask them to leave a bulk of the trunk intact so you can come and use it for your dugout.

 

[Qayaq]

Thanks Canotrouge. It looks like there are varying interesting techniques to make a dugout more stable. This is definitely a back burner project but if the stem on that cottonwood is sound Karin, I have a trailer that I could bring it home on.