Dugout canoes, chopped and carved out of tree-trunks, have been used at one time or another by many of Canada's First Peoples. However, it was on the Pacific Coast, where builders had access to giant red cedars, that dugouts were developed to their highest levels of performance and beauty. Dugouts from this area have displayed considerable variations in style as well as in size, ranging from small fishing and sealing craft to large seagoing vessels that carried whalers beyond the sight of land. Although dugouts were largely replaced by motorized plank boats in the early twentieth century, many First Peoples of the Pacific Coast now use them in cultural festivals.
|Dugout Canoe Construction
Pacific Coast Dugouts:
|kayaks | umiaks | bark canoes | dugout canoes
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