“While the tradition of birch bark canoe building may be fading into history, some of this legacy is retained in modern cedar strip and canvas copies. What ever romantic name modern companies give their models, Ojibway and Algonquin Indian were their original authors” - Tim Du Vernes, Golden Lake, Ontairo
There is a video featuring Ray Mears making a birch bark canoe on YouTube. Ray Mears is a British author and TV presenter on the subject of bushcraft and survival techniques, best known for shows such as Ray Mears’ Bushcraft, a show seen here in Canada on OLN. This YouTube series on building a birch bark canoe was an episode of this show. It followed the entire process of building a bark canoe, over a nine day period. It starts out with Ray briefly visiting the Canadian Canoe Museum (in Ray’s words: “a real Aladdin’s cave” of treasures). Ray is guided through the building process by Algonquin canoe builder, P. Smith of Pikwakanagan Indian Reserve, Golden Lake, Ontario (north of Ottawa). Mr. Smith comes from a family of canoe builders although he is identified in the show as one of the people alive to have this skill. Throughout the building process, there are segments that include Bill Mason and his daughter Becky, Kirk Wipper and William Commanda, to put perspective on the canoe in general, and birch bark canoes specifically.
Photo of Ray Mears from http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Media/Pix/pictures/2009/04/01/RayMearsSurvival460.jpg.
For more on the birch bark canoe builders of Golden Lake, see the VirtualMuseum.ca website, Canoe Builders of Pikwakanagan, http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/pm_v2.php?id=exhibit_home&fl=0&lg=English&ex=00000384. Included are photos of the largest canoe built in Golden Lake by Matt Bernard.
There is also this link on Turtle Island website, the official website of the Algonquins of Greater Golden Lake First Nation Membership, to an article on the birch bark canoe, http://www.greatergoldenlake.com/bark.html. Some interesting background information.
Here is the video on YouTube of Ray Mears building a bark canoe with Pinock Smith:
