The birch-bark canoe was ideally suited for transportation in the Great Lakes area. The lightweight craft was strong enough to survive the roughest of rapids and yet so manoeuvrable that a man could paddle it by himself down any river. The Ottawa, a nation of traders whose economy was based on the fur trade for nearly two centuries, were excellent birch-bark-canoe crafters.

To build a canoe, a man and a woman working as a team laboured every day for two weeks. First, they gathered sheets of bark that they sliced and pulled off birch trees. Next they rolled the sheets into tight bundles for ease of transport.

The builders then selected an area of level ground where they unrolled and laid out the bark. They placed the canoe's gunwale frame on the bark. The next step consisted in folding the bark up around the gunwale frame. This done, they weighed the bark down with stones and drove stakes into the ground along the outside to ensure the bark retained its shape as they raised the gunwale to its permanent position. They then lashed it in its place with spruce roots. After this, they sewed the seams and caulked them with a gum of pine and spruce resin mixed with animal fat.

The builders would line the inside of the canoe with thin cedar sheeting that they secured by pounding wood ribs in place with a hardwood mallet. These ribs lining the inside of the canoe were usually made from cedar wood softened with water and bent into shape. For the finishing touch, they carved the likeness of their clan's totem animal on the outside of the canoe. The craft was ready to launch.