> A few people I work with are very interested in building stripper canoes.
> It is very difficult (and expensive) to get good western cedar here. I
> live about one mile from a small lumber mill. I was there today and the
> owner knows I build canoes/ kayaks.

> He asked me if I would be interested in using Sassafras for canoes. I told
> him I would check.

> He has about 800 board feet of very clear Sassafras for a reasonable
> price. The question I have is...has anyone used Sassafras or are there any
> wood experts out there who know wood properties and can tell me if it
> roughly equivalent to cedar?

> Normally, Sassafras around here does not get big enough, but this stuff is
> about 10 inches wide.

I've never seen a sassafras that big! Ones around me are mere shrubs by comparison. If you got it, use it.

In Boy Scouts they used to list sassafras as an edible plant, and the old books suggested using shavings from the roots for making an aromatic tea. I understand that in recent years they have discovered the trees contain a compound (Safrole) that causes cancer. Perhaps that is why I have not seen references to making sassafras tea in my son's Scout books. For all that I drank over 3 decades ago, it has not yet made me sick. Maybe I`ve just been lucky,

Nonetheless, it might be a good idea to wear a respirator when sawing and sanding this stuff, and dispose of the sawdust promptly and carefully so kids don't get into it. For that matter, the sawdust from cedar, pine and redwood are not particularly good for your health, either, and the same safety precautions should be observed.

Once the wood is covered with epoxy it is about as safe a product as you can get. It is a nice light wood and should look very pretty. If the price is good, I'd say go with it.

Best of luck to you with this.

Paul Jacobson

I just found this article from the Michigan Department of Agriculture. It may explain more. I don't have the URL -- I just copied the whole thing because it was a short piece. A search engine looking at terms like MDA, safrole or sassafras should bring it up:

Why Grandma's Sassafras Tea Isn't

Good For You

Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers knew a thing or two about healing.

Often using natural herbs and other substances, they could banish aches and pains, restore energy and improve a child's disposition. In fact, sassafras, an oil from the bark of the sassafras tea, was known to relieve indigestion.

But Grandma was wrong about sassafras tea.

Safrole, a natural constituent of the sassafras bark, is known to cause liver cancer in laboratory rats. In 1976, the United States Food and Drug Administration banned its use in human foods.

Toxicological studies have shown that the continuous administration of safrole at high levels (5,000 parts per million) in the diets of rats caused liver tumors. Lower levels of safrole produced lesser, noncancerous damage to livers. Studies in dogs showed liver damage but no tumors.

Unlike other potentially carcinogenic substances, the federal government has not established safe levels for the consumption of safrole.

Sassafras was once prized for its flavoring of root beer. Root beer gets its name from the fact that the bark comes from the sassafras root. It was also used as a flavoring in chicle chewing gum in the 1870s.