Canada's ''Perfect Vehicle''
The design and construction methods varies due to factors such as functions and natural resources. For instance, people of Canada's west coast built dugout canoes by hollowing out giant red cedars. The shell was filled with water and hot stones.
This softened the wood so that it could be suitably shaped, Some of these canoes could carry up to two tons, and they were both fast and safe at sea, where they were used to hunt large sea animals, including whales.Canada's lakes and rivers were, indeed ideal highways and the canoes were considered the perfect vehicle. It enabled Native Americans to explore, hunt, and transport goods. A French explorer Samuel de Champlain crossed the Atlantic Ocean and sailed up to the St. Lawrence River in what is today Canada. Soon he encountered a major obstacle at the site of Montreal; the Lanchine Rapids, Any efforts to get his boats past the rapid would be in vain, in his journal he wrote in 1603. Dense forest made travel on foot impossible, so how then did he continue! Canoes, this was made possible from the lesson he learnt from the indigenous people.
In the North American, the birch bark canoe was the most famous, formed from the outer rind of birch trees. Thanks largely to a substance called betulinol, birch bark which is both durable and impervious to water. ''A birch bark canoe can go through rapids that would damage a wood and canvas canoe,''explained by canoe builder David Gidmak.
Materials includes birch wood, cedar wood, spruce roots and tree resin.
Construction methods were impressive. The native people ''make no use of nails and screws but everything is sewn and tied together'' reported a 19th century observer.
Before the railway era, the canoe was the fastest and most reliable means of transportation in North America.
Canoeing is still popular in Canada but mainly as a form of recreation. Sadly, suitable trees to build good birch bark canoes are becoming increasingly scarce. Other materials are readily available, though, including aluminium, canvas, wood and fiberglass.
Bill Mason, a famous canoeist, added another dimension to canoeing when he said '' A journey by canoe along ancient waterways is a good way to rediscover our lost relationship with nature and the creator who put it all together so long ago'' Hope you a agree to this ?