Fig. 3.
At each end, at the dotted line A A ([Fig. 2]), there is a strong apron-piece, but the bows are simply sewn together, as are the other joints in the boat, which is very light and handy. Now the thing is for you who have no birch bark to build a canoe on the same principle, easily and at little cost, and we will consider how this is to be done.
In an American paper there once appeared an article on ‘A Paper Boat,’ built on the lines of a birch-bark canoe, and it is not long since an adventurous young American went a tremendous distance on the American rivers in a paper canoe of his own construction. So you have paper proved to be possible as a skin for your boat as a substitute for birch bark. Another substitute and a far stronger one is canvas.
We will now proceed to get out the framework of the boat in question.
Fig. 4.
In the diagram ([Fig. 4]) you have sheer plan, body and deck plan, of a modified Canadian canoe; the ends are less curved than the original, but otherwise it is much the same. The first thing you will have to do is to draw a plan to scale on this principle of the canoe you propose building, and the simplest scale you can use is that of one inch to a foot, and in this way, if you decide on a canoe fifteen feet by two feet by one foot, the plan on paper will be fifteen inches by two inches by one inch, which you can multiply by twelve to get your measurements for any part.
You must first get a piece of wood for the keel. These canoes are always built without any exterior keel, and are therefore easily turned and managed; at the same time they are as easily turned by the wind, if there should be any, and for rough water I should prefer giving a small exterior keel screwed on to the keel on which you build the canoe, and which forms part of the body of the boat itself; but this you must decide for yourself. If you only want to punt about in smooth water and in shallows, you can dispense with any exterior keel, and in any case you can easily screw on a false keel of whatever depth you consider necessary afterwards.
The keel proper had best be shaped broad in the middle—say, six inches—and tapering off to the ends where the stem and stern posts are joined on. Having got your keel ready, and the stem and stern posts kneed in, and ascertained by a plumb line that they are perpendicular to the keel, the next thing is to cut out shadows, or frames, from the body plan. Three of these shadows will do (see [Fig. 4], C C C), one amidships, and one each between midships and the stem and stern. These shadows must be secured to the keel in such a way that they will not shift from the perpendicular, to which you must plumb them. The keel can be made of any good wood, elm or oak for preference; but common deal will do very well. It should be three-quarters of an inch by six inches in the middle, and taper to the ends. The stem and stern posts can be of three-quarter inch deal or hard wood, of sufficient length, and two to four inches deep, shaped out and secured with a galvanised iron or wooden knee to the keel. You can use an apron-piece or not, as you prefer. If you elect to dispense with the apron-piece the stem and stern posts must be deeper than if you use it, and a light groove of, say, one-eighth of an inch cut to receive the ends of the stringers. (See [Fig. 5], A A A A.) Or this groove can be dispensed with, and the end of the stringer tapered off so as to come flush.
