Birchbark Canoe - Living Among The Algonquin

In Birchbark Canoe - Living Among The Algonquin, author David Gidmark tells the story of the building of a traditional birchbark canoe and his apprenticeship learning about the skills, language and culture of the Algonquin of western Quebec.

Gidmark learns not only how to strip the bark from the tree, fashion gunwales from the cedar logs, carve the ribs with a crooked knife and sew the huge sheets of bark onto the frame with spruce root, but also how to see the wilderness and relate to it as the Algonquin do - ways that are very different Gidmark's frame of reference. As his knowledge increases, so does his respect for the culture and wisdom of native peoples and thier relationship to the land.

Paperback, 224 pages with 24 colour photographs, black and white photographs, and illustrations