Author and experimental archaeologist Robin Moore will bring his 13-foot birchbark canoe from Bucks County to the Eicher Arts Center, 409 Cocalico St., in Ephrata Borough's Grater Park, on Sunday, Oct. 15. He will give a presentation from 2 to 4 p.m.

Made of birch bark covering cedar structures, birchbark canoes were developed hundreds of years ago by indigenous people in what is now Canada. The canoes were light enough to be carried on land to avoid the riskiest stretches of waterway. Moore noted that the area that is now Lancaster County probably lacked the trees most suitable for the canoes' construction, but tribes such as the Iroquois on Northern raids sometimes took birchbark canoes back with them to use in what is now the United States. European explorers praised the canoes, and fur traders used them extensively in both Canada and the United States.

Canvas, a manufactured fabric, has largely supplanted birch bark as a protective covering for canoes, but in the summer of 2022, Moore spent three weeks in a remote northern Ontario location building an Ojibway Longnose style birchbark canoe with instruction from Tom Byers, a master of the birchbark canoe building craft. Byers is of French and Cree heritage and has built 98 birchbark canoes over the last 25 years. Working long days on a property with no electricity, power tools or internet access, Moore and Byers used an ax and a crooked knife to collect natural materials from the Canadian bush and build Moore's watercraft.

In addition to the canoe, Moore will display scale models of traditional styles of birchbark watercraft and samples of roots of Northern white cedar, Jack pine and birch trees used in the crafts' construction. Moore is working with Byers on a book about the birchbark canoe.

Admission is free, and donations to the Eicher Arts Center will be accepted.