Living along the coast line of the Great Lakes, the Potawatomi depended on their birch bark canoes as a means of travel and transporting their belongings.  American Indians in other parts of the United States used canoes made of stronger materials, but the birch bark canoe made by the Potawatomi Indians surprisingly strong.

The canoe makers of the Potawatomi tribe began by selecting a tall, straight tree that had tough bark and few knots.  While cutting the tree down, the men were very careful not to bruise or damage the trunk.  After carefully examining the trunk, they made a mark near each end of the log, about 18 feet apart.  They cut through the bark all around the trunk at each mark and made an incision lengthwise down the trunk.

The carvers lifted the log up on other supporting logs, then  peeled back the bark from the incision and pried it away from the log.  Then they pushed it downward and off with great care so that it would not buckle or tear.  Spring or summer is the best time to remove the bark, because it is easier to peel when it's moist.

The next step in the process was to flatten the bark.  This required the use of a torch made from pieces of dry outer bark, called waste bark, inserted into a split stick.  The canoe makers set the flame of the torch against the moist, inner side of the canoe bark.  If they applied the flame evenly, the bark would flatten out like a blanket.  Then they laid the flattened bark out on the ground, outer side up, and rolled it into a bundle while they built the frame for the canoe.

In creating the canoe's framework, it was necessary to achieve the proper shape so that the bark covered the fram properly.  Long pieces of a straight-grained wood such as cedar became the gunwales, ribs, and sheathing.

Each canoe had about four dozen bent ribs.  These pieces of wood were two fingers thick, that is, about an inch and a half (4 cm), and three or four inches (7.5 to 10 cm) wide.  The canoe makers made the ribs flexible by boiling them.  Then they bent the wood to the right shape and tied it down until it dried.

The gunwales, the long strips that gave the canoe its shape at the top, were shaped carefully with an upward bend at each end.  The ribs fit against the gunwales and were held in place by three crossbars made of tough wood.

In preparing for the construction of the canoe, the Potawatomi built a form of stakes; they drove the stakes into the ground around the framework in the shape of the canoe.  As soon as the bark was placed within the framing stakes, the work of fastening the gunwales began. Each step continued until the ribs were each securely wedged in place.  An expert builder placed the bark sheathing over the ribs.  It was difficult to fasten because it would frequently split at the ends.  On early canoes, the wood and bark were pierced with awls and sewn together with tough roots.

When the builders finished the canoe, they took it from its frame and inverted it.  Finally, they gummed the seams in the bark with pitch.  They left the canoe to dry.  If the canoe maker wanted his product to be unique, he would paint eyes or other figures at each end of the canoe.  Such designs were the craftsman's signature.

The Potawatomi moved often, either to seek out more fertile land for farming or to flee from other attacking tribes.  They used the birch bark canoes to move all their possessions.

With the arrival of the Europeans came a new form of transportation.  Following the victory of the British in the French and Indian War in 1755, the Potawatomi gathered up more than two hundred horses from those slain in the war.  Within a few years, the Potawatomi began to rely more on their horses for transportation than their birch bark canoes.  The horses were more rugged and reliable and allowed the Potawatomi quick transportation across land.

With the horses as transportation, the Potawatomi soon started crossing the Mississippi River to hunt, and they traveled into Missouri and Iowa.  By the early 1800s, only a few Potawatomi tribes around the southern end of Lake Michigan and along the nearby rivers relied on their canoes.