CANOEING

The first canoes were most likely dugouts. These were big longs hollowed out by burning and scraping with stone tools. The world "canoe" comes from the West Indian name for a dugout. Pasific Coast Indians built oceansailing canoes out of giant cedar logs. Natines of some of the South Pacific island still make and use dugout canoes to which they fastern and outrigger (a shaped log joined by spars projecting from the side of the boat) to keep from being tipped over in heavy seas. Dugout are also found today on many tropical lakes and streams. In swamps of the southern United State dugout are called pirogues.
Early canoes were also made by stretching animals skin over light framework of flexible wood. The skin were waterproofed with a subtance like pine pitch. The Eskimo kayak, a kind of canoe, has a framework of wood or bone covered with sealskins sewed together. The top is almost completely covered to protect the paddler from the elements.
American Indian of the northeastern woodlands made canoes of birch bark stretched over a cedar frame. The sheets of bark were sewed together, and the seams were waterproofed. The result was a very light weight canoe, easy to carry overland from one stream to another. The canoes we use today are descendants of this birchbark canoe.