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Bark, Skin, and Cedar will surely make for informative and inspirational reading for housebound canoe enthusiasts this year. Unlike conventional canoe books that narrate individual journeys or explain how to handle a canoe in whitewater, Raffan's new book is an amiable, discursive ramble across Canada, with little more holding the volume together than a desire to share excitement about canoes. Bark, Skin, and Cedar meanders from anecdotes about personal experience, through a study of competition in the canoe-building industry, toward an understanding of the values gained from experiencing the world from a canoe.
The book is organized into 11 chapters, each one developing some aspect of the canoe in Canada. Its organization is spatial, moving from Labrador in the first chapter, then sweeping through the Maritime provinces, westward through Quebec and Ontario, and west and north as far as the Bering Strait. One of the best features of the book is that, as the geographical focus shifts, Raffan takes a different tack on how he explores the canoe and its cultural trappings. For example, in the initial chapter, he lays down some basic canoe-building terminology as he discusses the development of the Gander Bay boat and its similarities to the Beothuk canoe. The next two chapters, which focus primarily on the Maritimes, largely concern themselves with Micmac birchbark canoes and with aboriginal stories about the origin of the canoe. Chapter Four addresses the development of the canvas-covered canoe and the cedarstrip canoe through an interesting and informative history of three major canoe manufacturers--the Chestnut Canoe, the Old Town Canoe, and the Peterborough Canoe companies. The fifth chapter, entitled "Lachine," evokes the heyday of the North West Company, especially attending to Governor George Simpson and his ceremonial use of the canoe,...