In Greenville New Hampshire a small town in the southern part of the stateHenri Vaillancourt makes birchbark canoes in the same manner and with the sametools th... » 

In Greenville New Hampshire a small town in the southern part of the stateHenri Vaillancourt makes birchbark canoes in the same manner and with the sametools that the Indians used. The Survival of the Bark Canoe is the story ofthis ancient craft and of a 150mile trip through the Maine woods in thosegraceful survivors of a prehistoric technology. It is a book squarely in thetradition of one written by the first tourist in these woods Henry DavidThoreau whose The Maine Woods recounts similar journeys in similar vessel.As McPhee describes the expedition he made with Vaillancourt he also tracesthe evolution of the bark canoe from its beginnings through the development ofthe huge canoes used by the fur traders of the Canadian North Woods where thebark canoe played the key role in opening up the wilderness. He discusses aswell the differing types of bark canoes whose construction varied from tribeto tribe according to custom and available materials. In a style as pure andas effortless as the waters of Maine and the glide of a canoe John McPhee haswritten one of his most fascinating books one in which his talents as ajournalist are on brilliant display. «