In this singular narrative we spend rather a lot of time with Henri Vaillancourt who makes birch-bark canoes and go on a journey through Maine which he makes both difficult and possible. While Henri is portrayed vividly, what is hardly credible is the equanimity the author attributes to himself in situations where his endurance and likely his life are challenged by Henri's inexperienced arbitrariness. ( )

John McPhee likes to dive into a subject, and research it inside out. In this one, he made the acquaintance of Henri Vaillancourt, a self-taught practitioner of the art of building bark canoes in much the same way early Indian craftsmen did. Vaillancourt learned the techniques from sketches and texts of Edwin Tappan Adney, a man who learned them directly from a New Brunswick Malecite builder. Adney's work was posthumously collected and published in 1964 by Howard Chapelle, Curator of Transportation at the Smithsonian, and Vaillancourt used that book, The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America as his only tutorial. Henri began building boats at age 15, and is, to all appearances, still honing his art, and taking orders for canoes, if you are prepared to wait. McPhee's descriptions of the actual building process are fascinating, and some of Adney's drawings are included in this book. Also engaging was the tale of a long canoe trip McPhee took with Vaillancourt and 3 others in the 1970s, along rivers, lakes and portage trails through the northern Maine woods. The bugs were vicious, the weather troublesome, and the mud would take you down. They never saw a moose. McPhee often leaves the narrative of their travails to give the reader bits of the history and geography of the area, as well as referring to other adventurers and travelers, like Thoreau, who passed this way before. Thoreau does not come off well. Neither, in fact, does Henri Vaillancourt, whose experience did not extend to planning, packing, paddling or portage for such an undertaking, and whose "people skills" were lacking. His jerky turned green. But by damn, the man could build a solid and beautiful canoe, for those who knew how to use one. ( )

This short book is a reprint of a long article McPhee wrote for the New Yorker about the bark canoe's that were invented by the Native American's. It is the story of a young man who became totally fascinated by the bark canoe and, since there were no Native American's in New England who knew how to make one, taught himself how to build bark canoes. Building them is now his livelihood and this book takes the reader through the process of building a bark canoe from scratch.
These canoes were a Northeastern U. S. and Canada invention because the natural materials needed to make them didn't, and don't, grow anywhere else on the North American continent. Along the way there is a huge amount of information about the use of these canoes by the Hudson's Bay Company and the voyageurs of yesteryear. It was bark canoe's that transported all of the goods to and fro across Canada and the northeastern part of the U. S., up until the middle 1800's. It was these eastern boats that made their way from the east coast to Alaska and back. As usual for a book by McPhee, the book was full of wonderful stories about so many different things as well as the canoe. There was lots of information in this book about the different styles of canoe's produced by the different tribes. If you knew about canoes you could figure out what tribe the people in the canoe were from. Turns out that these watercraft are fascinating inventions, important to the development and exploration of this continent, and very very durable. ( )

Henri Vaillancourt builds birch bark canoes. He taught himself how to do it and now creates them in an effort to prevent the skill from dying out. Contrary to what one might think, these canoes are incredibly strong. As a demonstration, Vaillancourt will drive his fist as hard as he can into the skin of one, which remains unaffected. The bark of the white birch tree is strong, resilient and waterproof. He splits all the wood for the frames — split wood is stronger and more flexible than cut wood. But Vaillancourt is perfectly content to let the myth of the fragile bark canoe continue. He knows they would survive white water — the Indians used them under all sorts of conditions, including the ocean — but he doesn’t trust his customers. Any canoe can be damaged, and he knows bark canoes are too rare to risk being destroyed. After all, he can only build about eight a year.

Only John McPhee could write about Henri and the canoe. All of McPhee’s books and articles are classics, and this one is no exception. McPhee describes, in loving detail, the entire process of building one of these canoes, from the splitting of the tree for the thwarts and ribs, to laying on the birch bark. Henri never uses power tools. Indeed, all he needs are an axe, an awl, and a crooked knife. Even the paddles he carves himself. McPhee, Vaillancourt and a couple of friends take a trip into the wilds of Maine, which have remained almost unchanged since Thoreau wrote about them more than a hundred years ago. It’s here that Vaillancourt finds his birch trees. All of them are steeped in Thoreau although Vaillancourt sneers at his impracticality, arguing that you can use nature without destroying it, and that Thoreau could travel in a bark canoe, yet when asked to describe how it was constructed could not. That Thoreau set several forest fires accidentally and walked away from them does not sit well with Vaillancourt either.

Sleeping at night in the Maine woods can only be described as “insectile.” While mosquitoes cannot make it through the screens on the tents, no-see-ums can. “They home on flesh. They cover the hands, the arms, the neck, the face. Like an acid, they eat skin. They are not ubiquitous, but they have been with us now for two nights in a row. At 3 A. M., I got up and . . . went into the water like a fly-crazed moose. I stayed in the lake in the dark for an hour . . . only the nose out — dozing.” Thoreau slept in the smoke from a fire covered with wet logs in a vain attempt to repel the insects. The Indians would never have made a warm weather camping trip. They weren’t fools. The tribes who lived there left during the summer months. They went, much like the Bushes, to the coast and Kennebunkport.


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A documentary work, McPhee's book gives equal weight to the canoe maker and to his art. The art was fascinating, the artist less so. McPhee enjoys a good trek and this no exception. We are witness to the discord of the trekkers. ( )