Another Canadian here, but any historical small boat enthusiast knows that this is a typical canadian prejudice where the blinkers are firmly on and the whole rest of the world of boat history and prehistory is firmly ignored or not even known.

The simple fact is that the canoe and the canoe form was derived in every society in the world that had trees that were large enough to shape at both ends and hollow out - and hence automatically present the ‘canoe form’. The canoe shape is no more Canadian than the boats from the forests of Europe, Russia, India, South America, Oceana, China, or indeed Australia where their forms or their remnants can still be found in many guises until the present – although fast disappearing.

What was different was the technology of birchbark matched to a quick build method that made a light boat, but those thin-skinned dugout and bark canoes of many other parts of the world were amazingly light as well.

[an australian bark canoe:]