Free Plans: Long Nose Ojibway Canoe

In the Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America, Howard Chapelle tells us that the most common type of Ojibway canoe northwest and west of Lake Superior was the “long-nose” form. The form shows a straight sheer, only slight rocker near the stems and a steeply upturned sheer near the stems. The stems were rounded and full. Chapelle seems to think that the combination features resulted in a clumsy and unfair looking canoe. He notes that the appearance didn’t affect the seaworthiness or paddling qualities. Later, he writes that Adney, the person who collected the lines, thought the long-nose canoes originated with the Dakotas before the Cree and Ojibway pushed them further west. He thought that they adopted the Dakota long-nose models to their own building techniques.

I disagree with Chapelle. The lines don’t seem unfair to my eye and in the three-quarters view shown above, the sheerline looks striking. I think this model, which Adney notes is a rice harvesting canoe, would make a great cabin canoe or weekend tripper. Its flat bottom would make the canoe stable and the high sides would allow for a large load. The canoe makes me want to get a wild rice harvesting permit and head off into the Boundary Waters, the area it was originally used in, to harvest rice.

Specifications
Length: 16 feet
Width: 34 inches
Capacity: 300 to 620 lbs.

Canoe Building Books

If you want to build a cedar strip canoe from the Paddlinglight free canoe plans, pick up a canoe building instruction book.

• Canoecraft: An Illustrated Guide to Fine Woodstrip Construction.
• Building a Strip Canoe, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded by Gil Gilpatrick
• Consider buying The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America for more info about this canoe.
  

For a more in-depth list, check out my canoe and kayak building books review.

Get the Drawing Package or the Free Canoe Plans Downloads

The drawing package includes the full-sized study plan and each station and stem drawn separately on a PDF that prints full sized on ARCH D size paper (nestings). You can cut these out and glue them to plywood to cut full-sized forms. A pdf of the electronic drawing package. is available for this kayak. You can print the file on 24- by 36-inch paper on your own. The free cedar canoe plans come as a pdf (free Adobe Reader required to view) that you can print off at photocopy stores.

• Downloads: Long Nose Ojibway Canoe Plans