FOREST AND STREAM 
113 
HOW TO MAKE A LOG CANOE. 
By G. O. Shields. 
Persons traveling in the wilds often need 'boats 
to carry them and their outfits. The folding can¬ 
vas canoe is popular and useful for such purposes, 
but that adds to the burden of the journey and 
can be eliminated if the traveler knows how, and 
if he travels in a timbered country. 
Anyone who is handy with an ax can in two 
days fell a tree and dig out a canoe large enough 
to carry two men and a thirty days’ supply of 
food, clothing, blankets, arms, ammunition, etc. 
In other cases a canoe is very handy where a 
camp is located near a lake or stream, and if 
campers only knew how easy it is to make a log 
canoe, more of them would be built and used. 
To make such a canoe means some hard work, 
but that is good for any person, especially those 
who have been shut up in an office. 
The canoe illustrated was made at a camp 
among some lakes in Canada. Most of the for¬ 
ests in the region had been killed by fire, but 
fortunately there was a small patch of green 
spruce at the upper end of the upper lake where 
a few good-sized green trees were to be found. 
These were looked over the second day after ar¬ 
riving, and a tree, 26 in. in diameter at the butt, 
was picked out, which was straight as an arrow 
and free from branches up to about 30 feet. The 
next morning this tree was cut down and a log, 
16 feet long, cut off from the butt end. One side 
of the log was hewed off, and a flat, smooth sur¬ 
face, 16 in. wide, was made for the bottom. Be¬ 
ginning about 2 ft. from each end, the log was 
rounded off from the bottom surface to the bark 
on the opposite side. This gave the curves for 
the bow and stern of the canoe. 
The log was then turned over, and the bark 
was trimmed off on each side to a line that would 
give the canoe a depth of 16 in. The mark was 
made with a line dusted with charcoal, and the 
wood was notched down to it. This was a more 
serious undertaking than that of hewing and 
facing the bottom, for it meant the removal of a 
larger quantity of wood. About 2 ft. of solid 
timber was left at each end of the log, for bulk¬ 
heads. This gave an open deckway of 12 ft. 
The notches were cut about 2 ft. apart, from the 
top of the log down to the charcoal line on the 
sides. When these notches were all sunk, the 
next thing was to split out the surplus wood. 
For this purpose a number of wedges were made 
from a small dead spruce, then an ax was driven 
into the end of each block, at intervals, from the 
top to the bottom, until the block started to split 
slightly, then a wedge was placed on each side of 
the block and driven in carefully with the poles 
of the axes. The blocks were easily removed in 
this manner. 
With the entire top portion of the log re¬ 
moved, the excavating and removing of the wood 
from what was to be the interior of the canoe 
was begun. This required careful work, to pre¬ 
vent cutting through the shell and causing the 
canoe to leak. The axes were used to remove 
most of the wood, but occasionally an adz came 
in handy for removing some pieces for close 
work. The surplus wood was gradually removed 
until the sides were thinned down to % in. and 
the bottom to 1% inch. 
The thickness of each side and of the bottom 
(Continued on page 117.) 
Building a Log Canoe. 
(Courtesy Popular Mechanics) 
