1 of oldest Native American birch-bark canoes now on display

It’s one of few early birch bark canoes still in existence because of the fragility of the material. The 16½-foot canoe had spent the last three decades in a barn, Vigue said. It suffered somewhat from being exposed to the weather, but a master birch bark canoe builder has been working to conserve it since the summer.

The builder, Steve Cayard, of Wellington, Maine, has been working on birch bark canoes for more than 40 years. He said the Native American models served as the template for modern canoes. Birch bark is flexible and the canoe itself is fairly light, which made it the material of choice for Native American canoe makers wherever it was available, he said.

“It made longer journeys possible, and it facilitated trade,” Cayard said. “The birch bark canoes are the ancestors of all modern canoes.”
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