The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America

"The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America" by Tappan Adney is a mid-20th-century study that examines the traditional bark canoes and skin boats crafted by North America's Indigenous populations. The book shines a light on the history and construction while detailing different kinds of these handmade watercraft, underlining their cultural importance, the talent it took to build them, and the supplies utilized. Focusing on the canoes built from birch bark, it describes how these boats were smartly designed for different types of water and easy to carry. European explorers who came to North America thought these canoes were amazing, but the book also mentions that old records don’t always give us a complete picture of how these canoes were used, which encourages the rest of the book to dive deeper into these boat types and how to make them.