The Survival Of the Bark Canoe

In the small town of New Hampshire, Greenville, Henri Vaillancourt makes birch-bark canoes in the same manner and with the same tools that Indians used. The Survival of the Bark Canoe is a telling of this ancient craft and a 150 mile trip through the Maine woods in these examples of prehistoric technology. The book is written in the traditions of the first tourist in these woods, Henry David Thoreau, whose text The Maine Woods recounts a familiar journey in a similar vessel. McPhee describes the expedition with Vaillancourt, the evolution of the bark canoe from beginning through the development of the large canoes used by fur traders of the Canadian North Woods. He notes the differing types of bark canoes, whose construction varied from tribe to tribe, according to custom and available materials. Effortless as the waters of Maine, John Mcphee has written a fascinating book, one in which his mind as a journalist is on brilliant display. 

Published by Farrar Straus Giroux in 1975, this first edition is in brown cloth with gold lettering on the spine and illustrated with several sketches of canoes.