Customer Reviews

Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America

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All modern students of bark and skin boats begin with this book. The intial work on the native watercraft of North America.

While the book does not cover the watercraft of all North American First Nations, it does provide a broad range of information on craft from many Nations across the continent.

This book is highy recommended to anyone interested in the history of canoes or kayaks as developed on the North American continent.

This book provided me the ability to build a number of the craft within its pages. This is the stuff that dreams are made of. If you are thinking of building a small wooden, canvas, or bark boat, these measured drawings will give you ample information to scale off, loft, and build one of the included designs or, alternatively, to design one of your own boats drawing from the information that has been faithfully passed down by Adney and Chappelle. A stunning compilation of indigenous wisdom.

Bark Canoes and Skin Boats, by Edwin Tappan Adney and Howard Chapelle is THE classic on the subject. I first got a hardbound copy through the US Govt Printing Office back in 1974. The recent copy purchased through Amazon was a gift for a friend. Adney became interested in bark canoes back in the late 19th century when folks were still using them on a daily basis, so he was able to document them and subsequently make scale models of many of them. Chapelle was the curator of transportation at the Smithsonian Museum, and undoubtedly the best authority on traditional American boat types at the time of the book's publishing for both Euro-American and Native American development. If it weren't for him there is no doubt that knowledge of most of these craft would have died out. The skin boats contained in the volume have been recorded and measured from specimens in the Smithsonian and other museums, as well as from boats measured in the field. In addition to measured plans, there is excellent accompanying text on how the various boats were built and used. If you only wanted to get one book on this subject, this should be the one.

Excellent book! Loads of info and history on the watercraft. I am happy I spent the money fir a research book I will get allot of use from. ...Ross

This is a must book if you are building a Birch Bark Canoe. It is the holy graille or encyclopaedia for building canoe's. Fantastic book.