More photos on the
way. Mr. Charlie Mickey's canoes can be finished in traditional black or can be
ordered with a choice of traditional motifs. The canoes are also available in
any size, from miniature up to 30-person capacity and every size in between. There
are but a handful of people left who have the skill and ability to craft these
incredible canoes. Mr. Charlie Mickey is proud to have produced thirteen of them,
each one not only a work of art but 100% seaworthy as well. The
main part of the trunk, which could grow as large as twelve feet in diameter,
is carved into large ocean-going canoes that were capable of holding thirty people
and travelling for great distances over the open sea.
Because
of the logging practices of the non-native owned companies in the area, there
are very, very few suitable trees left. To reach adequate size for canoe building
requires at least 500 years, but are often well over 1,000 years old. The wood
of the cedar is virtually impervious to decay so that a cedar canoe, with reasonable
care, can be expected to last several lifetimes.
In the late 1800's a Catholic priest wrote this description of the canoe building
process while living amongst the Nuu-chah-nulth people;
"At
this time of the year [summer] many of our indians go up the inlets and rivers
with the object of making new canoes. Up on the hillsides or on the lowlands they
cut down a cedar tree and with a common axe they cut off a length according to
the size required for the purposes of the canoe, i.e., sealing, fishing, sea otter
hunting, or travelling. Then they put the proper shape to it, very roughly, first
outside, then inside.
Next, they invite some friends
and together they pull the clumsy frame to the stream or to the ocean and then
float it and pull it on shore before their houses in the village.
When otherwise unemployed, especially in the early morning and toward evening,
they use a peculiar hand chisel or adze [in old times they used a chisel of stone
or of horn of the antlers of elk], and with wonderful patience they cut off chip
after chip, 'till the frame is reduced to the proper thickness - say one inch
or more for the sides and double that for the bottom.
Then knot-holes are filled up, finishing pieces put in, and when all this is done,
a fire is made under the canoe raised up from the ground on blocks, and the bottom
is rendered perfectly smooth.
All the work is done
without instruments to go by or to measure; yet most of these Indian's canoes
are so true and so well shaped and proportioned that not even an expert could
detect the least flaw or imperfection"...
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