Canoe building plan

Pegging Gunwales

With the canoe hull folded up and the sheerline set with height posts, I turned my attention to pegging the gunwales and setting them permanently. This would involve wetting with boiling water, piercing the outwale + bark + inwale with an awl and inserting a hardwood peg (round birch toothpick at this scale).

I was really looking forward to this step because after it was done the excess bark protuding above the gunwales could be trimmed off and the lashing could begin. Well, 2 minutes into the work...another mishap. The outwale on one of the sides snapped off. Gidmark's book, Building a Birchbark Canoe: The Algonquin Wabanaki Tciman documents this happening even with Jocko Carle, a master Algonquin canoe builder. So I didn't feel that bad. Jocko apparently spliced another piece of outwale with a scarf joint and lashed it so well with spruce root that there was no indication of the break taking place. Initially I tried this but found that at this smaller working scale, the flimsy outwale would break further under the tension of the lashing.


Broken outwale (light coloured cedar strip) towards the bow
Instead, I used a less than ideal piece of left-over gunwale stock to make another outwale, so problem solved...so I thought. When I first decided on this make of canoe, I read about how many builders simply cut linear gores in the bark and simply folded up the panels to form the hull. This method resulted in overlapped panels which form a small ridge that typically faced the stern. In this manner, the hull had a definite bow and stern and should only be paddled one way to prevent the ridges from catching edges and seeping in water. Famous builders like William & Mary Commanda whose canoes grace the Canadian Canoe Museum made boats with this technique.

Other builder were more elaborate and made the panels flat by cutting V-shaped gaps in the bark resulting in a flush joint. I wanted to keep it simple and decided on the former method for fear I would screw up the V-shape cuts and ruin the bark. What I hadn't figured is that that at full scale, the bark is relatively thin compared to the actual 1" gunwale width and the minor ridge would be easily sandwiched between the outwale & inwale without any gaps. In this reduced scale model however, the relatively thick bark is sandwiched between thin, flimsy gunwales totaling 1/4" and that left gaps in key areas of overlap. The gunwales would simply not hold the bark properly when pegged & lashed. The pic below shows what I'm talking about.


Overlapping panels causing spaces in the gunwale structure
To remedy the problem, more boiling water was poured over the bark and very carefully, the gores were shaped into V-shape cuts so that the bark panels would be flush. A very tense procedure because if I ripped the bark, more repair would ensue. Luckily all went well and the result is a hull with panels that are all flush and should be quite easy to stitch & seal


Flush seam
Next up, thoroughly wetting the gunwales and bark again, piercing a hole with an awl, and jamming half a round toothpick to tightly peg the gunwales together. Most books mention the need to only peg every 2nd lashing site but I decided to go overboard and peg every lashing site (with the exceptions of the thwart locations) from the centre to just inside the end-thwarts. The end pieces will be formed later once the bulk of the hull is lashed.


Piercing the gunwales with an awl; Pegging with birch toothpick
Once the whole structure was pegged, I cut the toothpicks flush with the gunwales using my wickedly sharp Mora Knife. In another brief moment of carelessness, I grazed the tip of my index fingertip (nearly shaving off the fingerprint I'm sure). It was so painless that I didn't even notice any discomfort as I dragged my finger along the inwale smearing blood along the way until I peered into the inside of the model and noticed my decorative bloodspots along the inwale.


View of pegs; Cut flush with blood smears
With lesson learned and a new bandage on the finger, I could move onto shaving away excess bark. Don't know why, but I was very eager to get to this step so that the final shear and profile of the canoe could be easily seen. This required more wetting with boiling water to soften the bark and slicing thinly with the Mora. Here are some pics of the progress, keeping in mind that I've left the bow & stern ends to finish later.




Now I can move on the next step, apparently the most laborious and time-consuming of all - lashing the gunwales with spruce root and stitching up the gores. Many books mention this part of canoe building accounts for half of the total build time. I've counted 52 lashing sites on the gunwales, 14 gores lines and 2 bow & stern panels that need to be stitched. Long and tedious but at least I won't be using any sharp objects for this one and can give my fingers a needed break.