click on the medicine wheel above to return to front page
click on the bark above to return to the North quadrant front page
Harvesting and Processing Giizhik,
Cedar
Northern white cedar is used for many parts of the canoe, most importantly the bimikwaanaatigoon (gunwales), the waaginaag (ribs), the inini-bagoog (manboards), and the waaganaawinzh (stempieces). Cedar is also used for making the sheathing that prevents passengers from placing their feet directly onto the birchbark skin of the boat. Cedar is naturally resistant to rot, and straight grained cedar can be bent exceptionally well after soaking and steaming.
Wayne looks for mature trees that have grown straight (i.e., not twisted) and that do not have side branches (which cause knots) for at least a length of five feet. When a suitable tree is felled, a workable length of trunk is taken and split repeatedly to produce a series of thick rough-cut boards. By splitting the trunk pieces with a hatchet or by hand, Wayne ensures that the grain runs continuously from one end of the board to the other. This continuity of grain will prevent the boards from cracking during the bending process, and over time as they age. Although the boards are initially split by hand, Wayne then uses an electric planer to reduce the width of each board to a workable thickness. Lower quality cedar stock is planed down even thinner to form the sheathing. Traditionally, this process was done using the waagikomaan (crooked knife), which is still an essential tool during many parts of the canoe-building process.
As with the birch, the parts of the cedar that are not used in the boat are left to dry out in the forest. As Wayne says, “The forest is my lumber yard; I can go back to that tree later and harvest the things I need from it at that point, like wood to make my ricing sticks.”
(TD)
(TD)
(TD)
(TD)
(TD)
(TD)
(TD)
(TD)
(TD)
(TD)
(TD)
Watch Wayne cut down a cedar:
(TD)
(TD)
(TD)
(TD)
(TD)
(TD)
(TD)
Sometimes Wayne chose to process the log quarters into rough-cut boards in the forest, so that they could be more easily carried out. Watch Wayne and Tim working together to process a log into boards:
