BIGFORK, Minn. - In his dilapidated workshop steeped in cedar sawdust and family history, Ray Boessel frets over his role in keeping a centuries-old craft alive. The craft is building birchbark canoes ...

“So you’re starting to see what I mean about all the sanding?” says Ron Pellinen, my wooden canoe-building mentor, when I walk into his shop on a brisk March morning in Northern Ontario. Perched on an ...

There's no room for a car in the Kesselhon garage. Instead, the space is taken up by cedar strip canoes in various stages of construction. Forms for more hang from the rafters. Welcome to the Lakeside ...

CHICAGO (WBBM) — There are only a few people left in the U.S. who know the Native American skill of building birch bark canoes. One of them is currently an artist in residence at Northwestern ...