Birchbark canoe building course aims to keep knowledge rooted in communities

A trio of Mi'kmaw apprentices are learning the skills to build a birchbarkcanoe from two master builders.

The course is eight weeks long and the group is intheir seventh weekat Kouchibougac National Park in New Brunswick, 85 kilometres north of Moncton, learning how toharvest birchbark, cedar and spruce root and crafta4.5-metrelong vessel.

The apprentices arelearning from master builders Rene Martin and Hank Caplin.

"You can see why they're so revered and why their teachings and why their knowledge has stood the test of time," said Gabrielle Barlow, from Indian Island First Nation.

"Their teachings have been invaluable to me."

The 24-year-old said shetook a break from her studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax tolearn these skills.

The group is beginning buildingthe frame of the boat with cedar ribs and birchbark siding.

Barlow spent a day helping thin out spruce roots so theycouldbe woven into the boat. The group had to boil the roots first so they were pliable andtheir work shed smelled like spruce gum and cedar.

Barlow said her biggest challenge was learning to be patient becausethe work could be tedious. She said theMi'kmaqbelievenothing should be wastedso they had to be extra careful with their materials.

She saidonce she's done the course she wants to build a birchbark canoe in her home community.

"I think it would give us a great sense of pride," said Barlow.

Caplin, who is from Ugpi'ganjig, Eel River Bar First Nation, hopes the knowledge he is sharing continues to spread.

"I love sharing the knowledge,"said Caplin, 59.

"If you keep the knowledge to yourself, it's a form of greed."

He is a carpenter by trade and saidhe learned from community elders that his great-grandfatherBilly Narveyalso built birchbark canoes.

Caplin saidbirchbark canoes are a traditionthreatened by clear-cutting practices. He saidin order to build a birchbark canoe, they need a tree that's at least 45 centimetres in diameter and that's rare without old-growth forests.

"We need our ash, we need our cedar and we need our birchbark, our birch trees,"said Caplin.

"These trees are very sacred to us so we need to protect what we have."

The national park and Mi'gmaw'l Tplu'taqnn Inc. (MTI) partnered to sponsor the eight-week course.

Tracy Cloud, director of trilateral negotiations for MTI, said the goal of the program is get Mi'kmaq harvesting on their traditional grounds again and to ensure thisknowledge isn't lost.

The other apprenticesLiam Watson from Metepenagiag Mi'kmaq Nationand John Barlowfrom Indian Island say they both want to bring this knowledge totheir home communities, too.

"In a couple of years everyone in Indian Island could learn how to make a birchbark canoe and Ithink that would be phenomenal," said John Barlow, 52.