The New Bark Canoe

"When he can, in his travels, he visits his canoes. This satisfies his longing to know how they are doing. He is pleased to get one 'back in the yard,' so he can touch it up, repair it, perhaps even improve it in the light of continually rising skill." – McPhee, from The Survival of the Bark Canoe







Oct. 30

The birchbark, a light, beautiful, entirely natural hand-handled boat. Living across the street from a river that flows into a lake which then flows into another river and ends at a final lake, the vision of setting one of these glowing white and light 16-footers up on the shoulder and walking across the street to drop it in any time of day is very alluring. There are any number of vessels that show up along this strip of the beach, itself lined by enormous quarry stones used as perfect landing zones. Old fiberglass canoes, clearly left outside under a house window in the leaves, are seemingly the most common. Because they are from directly in the immediate neighborhood, many are walked down on wheeled contraptions, then paddled off upstream toward the lochs. All kinds of varied colored kayaks, the bright blues and the sharp dandelion yellows all over the place. Once these are dropped into the Yahara River, they are picaresque at least as jut out from under the nearly hundred year old cobblestone Rutledge Bridge. The river here is often, unfortunately however, of a milky green cream color, as phosphorous is churned up at the lochs only a mile away and flows to expand itself along the northern shores of Monona. I picture the white birchbark gliding over the green, outrunning, if you will, its flow out into the middle of the lake where apparently the water clears up. It says in the book that Vallencourt, the skilled creator of the birchbark described in the books, spent all of his days working, repairing and testing his creations at 'his yard.' That each one, first and foremost, were artistic possessions, honed with skill and wisdom. That the split wood of the birches is far more strong than anything sawed, but therefore needs the patience of shaping. Once assembled the tensile strength of the unsawed birch is close to unbelievable; Vallencourt might very well punch the bottom of the boat with all of his might and that nothing more than deep thud occurs. He had spoken of rowing over stumps at a local lake and that it was the stump that took the worst of it. All that strength, a lightness of navigation, a pretty boat, handmade so that every fiber has been cared for technically and each shape and dynamic a deep homage to an ancient art. I have read recently that folk art craft and trade schools have taken on a very significant upswing in popularity in the past few years. We can see so many reasons why when we give ourselves a moment to see what it is that actually tends to gobble up our days, our time, and assess that with the same exact criteria of building a canoe, as just one example. The digital trades can easily take care of one half of the equation of time: it does indeed keep us busy; but has a much more difficult time holding up to the second halves of satisfaction: is what we staying busy doing have meaning, depth, lasting promise? Maybe most obviously, for those of us who have a strong spiritual leaning toward the outdoors, digital busy-ness can virtually never promise that a connection other than mind to digital can be achieved. In other words, in the end, there is no there there. No lasting substance. And you begin to wonder if the making of canoe should should show up at sixth hour school right after computer class? At the end of the day, a field trip to the local lake.