Failed Projects: Dugout Canoe

It was the end of my freshman year. I believe we were studying Native Americans in my History class and we had spent time talking about their techniques for building canoes. It is believed that they lit a fire at the base of a suitable tree and then chopped at the burnt tree with their primitive hatchets to remove material. They did this over and over until the tree fell down then they used a similar technique to shape the tree into a canoe. They essentially dug out (hence the name) the inside of the tree leaving a boat shell. This is what a successful one would look like:

I decided this looked like fun so after school I headed down to the petroleum pipeline that runs through my neighborhood. The pipeline is basically a long skinny field with mature forests on either side. I figured I could cut down a tree on the edge then drive down the field to pick it up. I didn't have an ax at the time, just a hatchet. I hid it in my pants on the way down so no one was suspicious. I convinced my younger brother to come with me to keep me company. There were few trees lining the pipeline that were really suitable. I ended up settling for a tulip poplar, which was really much too small to fit me but I overlooked that at the time I guess. It took me three afternoons to cut it down with my little hatchet. Towards the end, I got sick of swinging. I was pretty close to getting through the tree so I threw a rope around the tree and got it as high as I could. My brother and I both pulled as hard as we could until we heard the tree start to crack and give way....falling right towards us. We both darted out of the way. There's something really great about watching a tree fall. All the leaves provide a lot of air resistance and cause the tree to fall in slow motion. It creaks and snaps on the way down and when it finally touches down, the ground shakes with the impact. I would have felt bad about cutting down a nice healthy tree but tulip poplars grow like weeds and it doesn't take long (comparatively) for a tulip poplar to get big. 

The next step was hacking off the branches and finding a section of the trunk that was nice and straight. Tulip poplars are usually nice and straight anyway so that was another reason I had picked it. I spent another couple afternoons hacking off a section with the hatchet. Now that I had my log, I had to get it home. I didn't have a truck so the next best option was my mom's '95 minivan. I couldn't drive it all the way down to where the tree was because I was afraid I would get it stuck so I had to pull the log about 100 yards up to the top of a hill where I could load it into the back of the van. I used some round sections of branches to put under the log which was pretty damn heavy because it was so green and wet. I tied my rope around the log and, with the help of my hesitant dad, pulled the log up the hill. We could only pull so far until the roller logs came out from under the back end of the tree and we had to put it back up in the front. I got this idea from the way the transported the massive stone heads on Easter Island. Finally, we got the log up to the back of the van. We managed to wrestle the end of the tree up onto the bumper and eventually got the whole log inside. I tied it in nice and tight so that it didn't fall out when I accelerated forward.

Unfortunately the log was a bit too long so we couldn't close the trunk. I'm sure anyone who happened to see us drive by was pretty confused. Whoops.

I used our old red flyer wagon and the frame of a little peddle go cart we had to wheel the log into our backyard. I started a little fire all along the tree with charcoal briquettes. It did surprisingly little. I was pretty discouraged at how little the fire even did to the log. I tried hacking a little trench down the length of the log with my hatchet and tried again with the fire. It did a little more this time but still not much. I gave up when I realized after all this work, the canoe was still going to be much to small for me.

I revisited the project a little later. I decided I needed a bigger log so I went exploring along a public trail near my house. I found a nice big fallen pin. It was massive. At least a yard in diameter. I went out, bought an ax, and returned to start chopping off a good section. I'm not sure how I thought I was going to get it home but I never got that far anyway. After about an hour or two of chopping, some random trail walker and his wife stopped to look at what I was doing. The man began yelling at me in a heavy German accent. He said something about me having a weapon in a public area or some nonsense like that and said he was going back to the park office to report me. He asked what my name was and I struggled to think of a good fake name. "uuuh Steven Smith." I doubt he believed me but he left anyway, headed toward the office. I walked the other way rather quickly and headed towards home. I was probably breaking some sort of law. This wasn't the last time I got caught doing some forestry by a disgruntled trail walker, but I think that's for another story. 

-Me, the Wannabe Indian Shipwright