Education of a Raft Wacko

Illa-Tiki , John Haslett's first raft (top), hoisted a single squaresail on a bipod mast. It was intended for a pure downwind drift voya...

Northeastern Amerindian Canoes: Peabody Museum #8

As the final installment in the series,  let's look now at boat-related exhibits of Northeastern American Indian cultures at  Harvard Un...

More Pacific Northwest Canoe Items: Peabody Museum #5

This post, the fifth in a series on exhibits at Harvard University's   Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology ,  highlights more ca...

Nootka, Haida, Kwakiutl Dwellings and Canoes: Peabody Museum #4

Let's look at more maritime-related dioramas at Harvard University's   Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology , these depicting...

The Tomol Revival

In our most recent posts, which looked at the cultural background of the Chumash tomol and at tomol construction , both referred to replica...

Tomol Construction

A Chumash tomol . Painting by Robert Thomas. Click any image to enlarge. In our previous post, we looked at social and economic aspects of t...

The Chumash and the Tomol

A tomol replica built in 1976. Source: Chumash Maritime Organization . (Click any image to enlarge.) The Chumash were a North American marit...

Updates on Old and Ancient Canoes

A couple years ago , I noted briefly the discovery of a 230-year-old Canadian birchbark canoe, believed to be the oldest surviving example, ...