Elspeth Soper's Blog: Visit to British Museum

A while back, I responded to a forum post over at SongofthePaddle.co.uk. The poster wanted feedback regarding constructing their own canvas canoe using traditional native methods of construction. I recommended the poster obtain a copy of Garth Taylor's 1980 book Canoe construction in a Cree cultural tradition. It visually documents the building of a traditional Eastern Cree canoe made using canvas as a substitute for birch bark - see my original write-up about it here.


The poster, Elspeth Soper, has a blog documenting the early attempts at construction and includes some of the frustrations with broken gunnels. A recent post showcases a research visit to the British Museum which granted an exclusive tour of the full sized and model bark canoes in their possession. One of models has a decorated Cree paddle with the historical hash marks and dot decoration featured in Garth Taylor's book.

British Museum Model Cree Canoe & Paddle

Lots of more pics of the bark canoes in their collection can be found at the full post here