Crafting a vessel

On a quiet plot of land just outside Spruce Siding, Manitoba, the scent of fresh white spruce root hangs in the thick 30-degree air of mid-July. For over 300 hours, the space has served as an outdoor workshop. Here, Dr. Brian Rice, Indigenous scholar and professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management, and Métis historian and craftsperson Denis Gendron, have been building a 13-ft Eastern Woodland-style birch bark canoe. The canoe has been fashioned by hand from materials gifted by the boreal forest. 

To a casual observer, it is a striking piece of traditional craftsmanship: a birch bark sheath, hand-split ribs, and miles of hand-bound spruce roots binding the gunwales. But to Rice, the vessel represents far deeper than a historic replication. It is a living classroom and an embodiment of land-based pedagogy, an approach to learning that Rice has been a leader in his entire career.

Rice has spent more than thirty years in education. Early in his career, he taught Social Studies and Native Studies in the Anishinaabe community of Winniway and later served as the school principal. Transitioning to higher education, he taught Indigenous spiritualities at the University of Winnipeg before becoming Director of Aboriginal Governance at the University of Manitoba. Over the years, he helped lead programs in Aboriginal Education and Indigenous land-based learning at UM, while also teaching Peace and Conflict Studies and International Development Studies at Menno Simons College.

Though he initially taught the history of colonization, his path shifted as he recognized a gap between conventional academic teaching and traditional ways of knowing. Having completed his doctoral studies in Traditional Knowledges, Rice saw opportunities to share insights through a different lens. Throughout his career, he has inspired many students to embrace learning in other ways. Now as he looks toward the horizon of his career, he wanted to leave behind something physical and lasting, leading him to take on the challenge of building a traditional canoe.

“I had never before been able to replicate a course that fit into my perspective of Indigenous land-based learning.”  

He says when the opportunity to lead land-based learning in the faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management came about he welcomed the challenge.

“I said, you know, I can do something with this where I'm not going to be confined to a space, a classroom space. And so, I try and get my students out as much as I can, to the outdoors.” 

“My reasoning for the birch bark canoe is because I’m going to retire—maybe not quite yet, but I’m getting close,” says Rice. “And I wanted to do something that was experiential that would, in a way, leave us with something tangible besides just my knowledge.” 

The project is also an expression of gratitude for a role that allowed him to bring learning entirely beyond academic walls.  

“The canoe is the culmination of my academic journey,” he says. “It is for all of us at UM, and the Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management to enjoy.”

While Rice brings decades of land-based teaching, he is quick to acknowledge that building a traditional vessel from scratch requires knowing when to take a backseat and let someone else take the lead as happened with Denis Gendron.

“I wouldn’t call myself a craftsman, although I come from a very working-class family,” says Rice. “My dad was an ironworker. My uncles, they were all military guys that came back from the war and ended up in those high skyscrapers, walking on those four-inch breams, and I decided I’m not very good at it. So, I ended up over time, becoming a university professor.” 

When the build ran into early obstacles sourcing proper materials, it was master builder Gendron, who found a sustainable solution. His practical ingenuity solved critical material challenges early on. When large sheets of bark proved elusive, Gendron adapted.

“We were really struggling getting a good birch,” says Rice. “But Denny came through with smaller pieces that he just sliced off the trees without having to kill them, which was really good.”

Fast-forward the scene to the bright, light-filled atrium of the Active Living Centre Agora on a sunny early October afternoon. The canoe rests on the floor, surrounded by a circle of curious students, faculty and onlookers.

Standing next to the canoe resting on the concrete floor, Gendron walks the onlookers through the intricate geometry and hands-on steps of constructing the Eastern Woodland canoe. Every joint, stitch, and brace carries a balance of traditional technique and pragmatic problem-solving.

“Everything's been made. Nothing's been bought,” Gendron says, pointing to the structural spruce gunwales and heavy hardwood thwarts.

“This is a thwart—the thwart is to keep it separate. The user can use hickory, maple, ash... I had oak. So that's what I'm using, and it's indestructible. That goes into mortise and tenon joints.” 

The build required adapting traditional practices to real-world realities, balancing ancient hand-splitting with modern efficiency. Up close, that resourcefulness and traditional engineering are on full display.

The outer hull: Dark, textured white birch bark forms the outer skin, sealed along heavy overlapping seams with pine gum that line the hull in sweeping strokes.

Ribs and thwarts: Inside the vessel, tightly spaced, hand-bent cedar ribs curve sequentially along the interior, supported by smooth crosswise thwarts that lock the gunwales into place.

Spruce root binding: Every junction along the top edge is stitched with split white spruce roots—dug from the forest floor—woven in neat, continuous coils that bind the bark sheath securely to the wooden frame.

In conventional academia, knowledge is often treated as abstract concepts bound within textbooks or lecture slides. Land-based learning turns that dynamic on its head. It insists that the land itself is the primary teacher, holding wisdom unlocked through physical practice and environmental relationship. This approach was fundamental in the building of the canoe.

“During the harvesting of birch, we never cut down a tree,” says Rice. “We harvested the bark from the living tree, knowing it would grow back and the tree would live. We also did ceremony when we could.”

Whether snowshoeing up Bison Mound in the winter, making snow shelters, or leading nature walks on campus and in the city, Rice shares knowledge about many different historical sites in Manitoba. His courses push students to learn through physical experience outside standard classroom boundaries. 

“Sometimes you have to go out of the box to find, you know, what you want to do inside the box,” Rice says. “For those of us who become teachers and professors. It is important that we remain students, learning new things to pass on to our students.”

Through this canoe project, students encounter Indigenous knowledge through tangible and physical experiences as an ongoing part of their university education. 

The partnership between Rice and Gendron highlights the strength of centering traditional Indigenous knowledge alongside master craftwork. Where modern Western manufacturing relies on synthetic adhesives and standardized parts, the construction of the Eastern Woodland canoe construction relied upon environmental stewardship, seasonal timing and intergenerational memory. 

Every lashing and pitch seam represents a crafy perfected over thousands of years—fully sustainable, completely biodegradable and deeply tied to the waterways of traditional territories. 

As the day’s work ended on that hot July day outside Spruce Siding and tools were put away, Rice left the group with words from his own language: “Nia: wen —which means in my Mohawk language, thanks. And o:nen ki wa hi, until we meet again, marcii, a la prochien, kaawaapamitin in Michif and miigwitch, ki ga wabamin minewa in Cree and Anishnabe.”