114 A TASTE OF MAINE BIRCH. 



shy, delicate creature just emerged from its hiding- 

 place, or like some wild flower just opened. It was 

 the first boat of the kind I had ever seen, and it 

 filled my eye completely. What wood-craft it indi- 

 cated, and what a wild free life, sylvan life, it prom- 

 ised ! It had such a fresh, aboriginal look as I had 

 never before seen in any kind of handiwork. Its 

 clear yellow-red color would have become the cheek 

 of an Indian maiden. Then its supple curves and 

 swells, its sinewy stays and thwarts, its bow-like con- 

 tour, its tomahawk stem and stern rising quickly and 

 sharply from its frame, were all vividly suggestive of 

 the race from which it came. An old Indian had 

 taught Uncle Nathan the art, and the soul of the 

 ideal red man looked out of the boat before us. Un- 

 cle Nathan had spent two days ranging the moun- 

 tains looking for a suitable tree, and had worked 

 nearly a week on the craft. It was twelve feet long, 

 and would seat and carry five men nicely. Three 

 trees contribute to the making of a canoe beside the 

 birch, namely, the white cedar for ribs and lining, 

 the spruce for roots and fibres to sew its joints and 

 bind its frame, and the pine for pitch or rosin to stop 

 its seams and cracks. It is hand-made and home- 

 made, or rather wood-made, in a sense that no other 

 craft is, except a dug-out, and it suggests a taste and 

 a refinement that few products of civilization realize. 

 The design of a savage, it yet looks like the thought 

 of a poet, and its grace and fitness haunt the imagi- 

 nation. I suppose its production was the inevi table 



