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Go Paddle 4 Fun LLC
Newsletter V.1 Issue 1 April 21, 2003
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Tom Byers The Ancient Art of Creating a Birchbark Canoe (Jim Thaxton)
Tom Byers is Wood River Canoe Company. His business card reads “Birchbark canoes, finely crafted in the traditional way with natural materials only”….
That is an understatement! One could argue that he is not only “loyal” to the Algonquin, Cree, and Ojibway tribal traditions in construction and the artwork, but that "finely crafted" should be changed to "a work of art.” After constructing each canoe, Tom decorates the bark, gunwales, and thwarts with exquisite artwork.
Wood River Canoe Company demonstrated the art of building birchbark canoes during the Hart Travel, Boat and Sport Show in Cincinnati, Ohio in early January. I met Tom and his assistant Cathy Johnson during the show. Their booth was next to the Kentucky Professional Paddlesports Association’s (KYPPA - http://www.kyppa.org) where I was working as a volunteer. It was an ideal location for Tom’s company and KYPPA.
People were naturally attracted to the demonstration of this ancient art of canoe making and if they shared a common interest in paddling, Cathy directed them to sidestep over to our booth where they could discover all the places to paddle canoes in Kentucky.
Cathy Johnson knew how to work the crowds that gathered around the canoe. She helped with the artistic etching while explaining all the steps in building these “living canoes”. She has a mischievous captivating smile and used her eyes to gather the attention of a handful of onlookers then asked the rhetorical question, “Did you know that Birchbark canoes have been built and used for 5 to 6 thousand years?” Without waiting for an answer she added, “There are so many people who have this idea that fur traders invented them somehow, rather that First Nations peoples.”
Thanks to Cathy’s willingness to inform the endless visitors and give Tom a break, he and I got to know each other fairly well. Coincidentally, he comes from an area where I took my first steps in becoming a canoe outfitter nearly 30 years ago.
Before practicing the art of building birchbark canoes, Tom was a professional musician who supplemented his income as a contractor finishing drywall and painting. He spent much of his younger years with his guitar busking on the street corners of Toronto. His father was Irish and that might be where he inherited his musical talents. But music didn’t pay the bills.
When he needed extra money, he subcontracted odd painting jobs. He was preparing to paint a room with a vaulted ceiling when he saw his first real birchbark canoe. It was here that he encountered his mothers’ ancestors.
“My Mom is Metis (pronounced May Tee) which means French and Native”, Tom explained.
“There it was, hanging from the ceiling. The canoe had apparently been in the family as an heirloom for several generations.” Tom was clarifying how he first became interested in the birchbark canoe. He paused his narrative and made deliberate eye contact with me. His soft blue eyes contrasted with his weathered backwoods face. I sensed that he was searching my soul for permission to say what happened next. Our eyes locked as he explained to me that he stood below the canoe considering ways to protect it while he painted the room. It had evidently been hanging there for a long time.
“You’re not going to tell me it fell on your head or something like that are you?” I queried, speculating where he might be going with his narrative.
“No, the first birchbark canoe that I saw didn’t fall from the ceiling, it was me who nearly fell through the floor, figuratively speaking. It was alive! And, it spoke to me in a very powerful spiritual way. What it said was ` this is what can be accomplished when mankind works with nature rather than against it. “The experience left me dazed and confused for many days and it took a while for me to figure out that building birchbark canoes was the only response that
made sense.”
He studied my reaction. Satisfied that I was at least accepting his story without prejudice he continued, “My life hasn’t been the same since. I ordered videos and studied books. Ralph Freeze of Chicagoland Canoe Base sent me a video of a film made in the 1920’s. It showed native people making a birchbark canoe in the Abenaki Style, a new and old style Algonquin birchbark canoe. It was a silent film with subtitles.”
Tom Byers studied other videos and began making his first canoe in 1994. Since then he has made 17 signature birchbark canoes.
“My canoes are now living in Hawaii, California, Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, Norway and Canada.” Tom said this in the same way a proud father tells a friend where his grown children are currently living. 
He also carves extravagantly detailed beavertail style paddles out of a single piece of wood. It takes him two months to create a canoe from start to finish.
“Sometimes the work gets a little bit tedious”, Tom admits. “What I like most is going into the woods to gather all the materials. I recently found a pine tree that the beetles and birds have been working on. It had a huge mass of pine gum stuck to the side of it. It is like nature herself, working with me all the way, led me to where I could find just what I needed without disturbing the balance of things.”
I asked Tom if he has ever been criticized by city folk for destroying trees. He admitted that this
sometimes happens when he is working shows in the big cities. And, though he tries to explain the density of the woods where he lives near Whitefish in Ontario Canada most just don’t understand. “They simply don’t have the real life experience to compare it to, eh?” He shrugged allowing his Canadian accent to justify his ambivalence to such critics. Then he picked up one of his woodworking tools and settled back into etching cedar buds below the gunwales of the nearly finished canoe.
Tom’s hand wiped a damp cloth reverently over the area where he was sketching. As he did so, he explained the meaning of the artwork he was applying to the canoe. “These pictographs are to honor the cedar trees and connect to what Cathy calls ‘the feather guys’ which are Ojibwey picture writing. The inscriptions ask the spirits to watch over the canoe and its cargo from above.”
“This is what will save the world”, I thought as I watched him work, “each of us expressing our talents individually for the benefit of all.”
For more information about Tom’s Wood River Canoe Company write Tom Byers at 1518 Grassy Lake Road, Whitefish, Ontario P0M 3E0 or call him at 705-866-5285.
Jim Thaxton is a member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America and Managing Partner of Go Paddle 4 Fun LLC and web portal www.gopaddle.com that is designed to bring people, paddlesports providers and waterways together. He is the editor of a quarterly on line newsletter dedicated to the first time paddling experience. He is also a canoe outfitter on Licking River in Kentucky. You can visit him on the worldwide web at www.gopaddle.com or email him at info@gopaddle.com.
Copyright: Jim Thaxton
All Rights Reserved. No part of this story may be copied or used without expressed permission of the author or his assigns.
If you have an article you would like to submit, email the article or your request to info@gopaddle.com .
copyright 2003 Go Paddle 4 Fun LLC and Jim Thaxton, All Rights Reserved
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