Wall Street Journal - Penobscots Make Birchbark Canoes

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Auerbach - 29 Aug 2003 15:35 GMT

The Wall Street Journal today (8/29) has a front-page article about the
effort by the Penobscot Indians to re-acquire the skills for making
handcrafted birchbark canoes. They made the last one in 1920, and lost the
art when they adopted factory-made canoes. A white man, who taught himself
to make the canoes, is helping the tribe teach members the skills. It takes
a skilled worker about 400 hours of tough, often dirty work to make one
canoe.

The article is online at www.WSJ.com.

Alex

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William R. Watt - 29 Aug 2003 17:03 GMT

> The Wall Street Journal today (8/29) has a front-page article about the
> effort by the Penobscot Indians to re-acquire the skills for making
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> a skilled worker about 400 hours of tough, often dirty work to make one
> canoe.

It takes a skilled bark canoe maker and one helper 2 weeks to make a bark
canoe. That's more like 100 hours. People are still making them here in
Canada. The Ottawa public library has a copy of the National Film Board
construction documentary "Cesar's Bark Canoe" on video. During the
depression in the 1930's one local bark canoe maker said he was selling
them for $2.50.

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Dale Simpson - 29 Aug 2003 23:04 GMT

> The Wall Street Journal today (8/29) has a front-page article about the
> effort by the Penobscot Indians to re-acquire the skills for making
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
>
> Alex

Too bad I am not a subscriber to the WSJ, I would have liked to read that
article.

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Auerbach - 31 Aug 2003 02:55 GMT

> > The Wall Street Journal today (8/29) has a front-page article about the
> > effort by the Penobscot Indians to re-acquire the skills for making
> > handcrafted birchbark canoes.

snip

> > The article is online at www.WSJ.com.

> Too bad I am not a subscriber to the WSJ, I would have liked to read that
> article.

I don't think you need not be a subscriber to the Journal (or their
fee-based website service ) to view current articles.

Alex

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Boat Forum / Building / August 2003

Wall Street Journal - Penobscots Make Birchbark Canoes