When restoring a wood-canvas canoe, you don't work on it, you work with it. In This Old Canoe: How To Restore Your Wood-Canvas Canoe, Mike Elliott guides you through the process of bringing your classic heirloom back to life. He takes you step-by-step through all aspects of a canoe restoration from assessment to the finishing touches. Concise instructions clearly illustrated, provide the passport you need to embark on this unique adventure.

Canoe and Canvas is a close reading of the annual meetings and encampments of the American Canoe Association between 1880 and 1910.

The bark canoes of the North American Indians, particularly those of birchbark, were among the most highly developed manually propelled primitive watercraft. Built with Stone Age tools from available materials, their design, size, and appearance were varied to suit the many requirements of their users. Even today, canoes are based on these ancient designs, and this fascinating guide combines historical background with instructions for constructing one. Author Edwin Tappan Adney, born in 1868, devoted his life to studying canoes and was practically the sole scholar in his field. His papers and research have been assembled by a curator at the Smithsonian Institution.

In Greenville, New Hampshire, a small town in the southern part of the state, Henri Vaillancourt makes birch-bark canoes in the same manner and with the same tools that the Indians used. The Survival of the Bark Canoe is the story of this ancient craft and of a 150-mile trip through the Maine woods in those graceful survivors of a prehistoric technology. It is a book squarely in the tradition of one written by the first tourist in these woods, Henry David Thoreau, whose The Maine Woods recounts similar journeys in similar vessel. As McPhee describes the expedition he made with Vaillancourt, he also traces the evolution of the bark canoe, from its beginnings through the development of the huge canoes used by the fur traders of the Canadian North Woods, where the bark canoe played the key role in opening up the wilderness. He discusses as well the differing types of bark canoes, whose construction varied from tribe to tribe, according to custom and available materials. In a style as pure and as effortless as the waters of Maine and the glide of a canoe, John McPhee has written one of his most fascinating books, one in which his talents as a journalist are on brilliant display.

FIELD & STREAM, America’s largest outdoor sports magazine, celebrates the outdoor experience with great stories, compelling photography, and sound advice while honoring the traditions hunters and fishermen have passed down for generations.

The definitive guide to building this classic watercraft. (SEE QUOTE.)