Traditional Muzzleloading Association

The Center of Camp => People of the Times => Topic started by: Puffer on October 16, 2019, 10:00:41 PM

Title: David Thompson builds & uses a CEDAR PLANK CANOE on the Columbia River
Post by: Puffer on October 16, 2019, 10:00:41 PM

David Thompson surveys Celilo Falls, The Dalles, and Cascades Rapids on the lower Columbia River beginning on July 13, 1811 Using a   CEDAR PLANK CANOE   -- https://www.historylink.org/File/9178

Title: Re: David Thompson builds & uses a CEDAR PLANK CANOE on the Columbia River
Post by: Spotted Bull on October 17, 2019, 12:26:58 AM

well thats cool!

Title: Re: David Thompson builds & uses a CEDAR PLANK CANOE on the Columbia River
Post by: Puffer on October 17, 2019, 02:32:56 AM

ADDED INFO

https://www.sandpointonline.com/sandpointmag/sms11/davidthompson.html

--After careful consideration, Thompson had them fell a large cedar tree and set to work constructing a plank canoe of his own design. Over the next several weeks, a hybrid vessel sewn together with spruce roots took shape in the place known from then on as Boat Encampment. On April 17, the four men set off upstream, making for Thompson's original Kootanae House post at the Columbia's source lakes and the trade route he had established over the previous four years west of the Continental Divide. -----------
----------- But in the larger scheme of events, this section of the river represented simply another leg of a much longer journey. It took six months for the Nor'Westers to build the three boats and cover the water and overland miles that got them to Kettle Falls. Over the next nine months, Thompson and various groups of men and women would cover all those river miles twice over, and build no less than seven more full-sized cedar plank cargo canoes. They ended up right back at Kettle Falls, ready to shove off for the upstream paddle back to Boat Encampment, where it all began. In the fur trade world, the river ran an endless circle. And Thompson's strange plank canoes became the model that grew into the Columbia River bateaux, used to haul goods and furs over the next four decades for both the Columbia and Fraser River fur districts.

Title: Re: David Thompson builds & uses a CEDAR PLANK CANOE on the Columbia River
Post by: Ironhand on October 18, 2019, 11:52:57 AM

Are there any sites with instructions? I have lots of trees and a sawmill near by. Looks like a neat project.

Thanks
IronHand

Title: Re: David Thompson builds & uses a CEDAR PLANK CANOE on the Columbia River
Post by: One Shot on October 19, 2019, 01:32:01 PM

Yes, I would be interested as well as I can get all the cedar I want from the mill my son works at.......