New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, (1975) dj. Hardcover - McPhee's twelth book. "In Greenville, New Hampshire, Henri Vaillancourt makes birch-bark canoes in the same manner and with the same tools that the Indians used. [This book] is the story of this ancient craft and of a 150-mile trip through the Maine woods in those graceful survivors of a prehistoric technology. . . As McPhee describes the expedition he made with Vaillancourt, he also traces the evolution of the bark canoe, from its beginnings through the development of the huge canoes used by the fur traders of the Canadian North Woods, where the bark canoe played the key role in opening up the wilderness. He discusses as well the differing types of bark canoes, whose construction varied from tribe to tribe." INSCRIBED by McPhee on the page facing the title page. 114 pp plus a 32 pp Portfolio of the Sketches and Models of Edwin Tappan Adney (1868-1950). ISBN: 0-374272077.