5:30 pm to 6:30 pm
We know far more about the iconic birch bark canoe than we do about the large wooden dugout canoes that were central to Native American life along vast sections of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers at the time of European contact, and for many centuries before that. This paper explores how and why we have “missed the boat.” The suggested answers re-open a somewhat neglected chapter in the history of the vast river basin, its huge river-bottom trees (that have been gone for several centuries), and the transportation achievements of generations of indigenous residents of the North American interior.
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