BBCP - Ely Folk School

Welcome to the Birch Bark Canoe Project (BBCP)

Thank you to all of our participants and supporters! We respectfully honor the Anishinaabe origin of the birch bark canoe and share its tradition to help preserve and revitalize cultural knowledge. Crafting and paddling birch bark canoes together help connect and empower our diverse communities. Read more!

Thanks to instructor Erik Simula, birchbark canoe building has been a ‘flagship’ of the Ely Folk School since we launched in spring 2015. Erik facilitated a team of EFS volunteers and students who crafted our first canoe, a 14-footer, literally from the ground up: first by gathering spruce root, pitch, cedar and birchbark in the forest and then crafting the canoe week-by-week through the summer at the EFS green space