If properly handled, a good canoe will safely hold four men. Canoes intended for deep water should have considerable depth. Those intended for shoal water, such as trout-fishers use, are made as flat as possible. Up to the time when canoeing was introduced the materials for building craft of this kind could be found all along the rivers. Big birch-trees grew in countless numbers, and clear, straight cedar was quite as plentiful within a few feet of the water's edge. Now one must go miles back into the dense forests for such materials, and even then seldom does it happen that two suitable trees are found within sight of one or the other. Cedar is more difficult of the two to find.
The Tree
The tree is selected, first, for straightness; second, smoothness; third, freedom from knots or limbs; fourth, toughness of bark; fifth, small size of eyes; sixth, length (the last is not so important, as two trees can be put together), and, seventh, size (which is also not so important, as the sides can be pieced out).
Dimensions
The average length of canoe is about 19 feet over all, running, generally, from 18 to 22 feet for a boat to be used on inland waters, the sea-going canoes being larger, with relatively higher bows. The average width is about 30 inches inside, measured along the middle cross-bar; the greatest width inside is several inches below the middle cross-bar, and is several inches greater than the width measured along said cross-bar.
The measurements given below are those of a canoe 19 feet over all: 16 feet long inside, measured along the curve of the gunwale; 30 inches wide inside. The actual length inside is less than 16 feet, but the measurement along the gunwales is the most important.
Bark
Bark can be peeled when the sap is flowing or when the tree is not frozen—at any time in late spring, summer, and early fall (called summer bark); in winter during a thaw, when the tree is not frozen, and when the sap may have begun to flow.