page_title: Dugout canoe
section_title: The Americas
hierarchical_section_title: Dugout canoe / The Americas
context_page_description: A dugout canoe or simply dugout is a boat made from a hollowed tree trunk. Other names for this type of boat are logboat and monoxylon. Monoxylon is Greek -- mono- + ξύλον xylon -- and is mostly used in classic Greek texts. In German, they are called Einbaum. Some, but not all, pirogues are also constructed in this manner.
  Dugouts are the oldest boat type archaeologists have found, dating back about 8,000 years to the Neolithic Stone Age. This is probably because they are made of massive pieces of wood, which tend to preserve better than, e.g., bark canoes. Along with bark canoe and hide kayak, dugout boats were also used by indigenous peoples of the Americas.
context_section_description: Dugout canoes were constructed by indigenous people throughout the Americas, where suitable logs were available. 
  The native Americans of the Pacific Northwest were and are still very skilled at crafting wood. Best known for totem poles up to 80 feet (24 m) tall, they also construct dugout canoes over 60 feet (18 m) long for everyday use and ceremonial purposes. In the state of Washington, dugout canoes are traditionally made from huge cedar logs (such as Pacific red cedar) for ocean travellers, while natives around smaller rivers use smaller cedar logs.
  In 1978, Geordie Tocher and two companions sailed a dugout canoe (the Orenda II), based on Haida designs (but with sails), from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to Hawaiʻi. The dugout was 40-foot (12 m) long, made of Douglas fir, and weighed 3.5-short-ton (3.2 t). The mission was launched to add credibility to stories that the Haida had travelled to Hawaiʻi in ancient times. Altogether, the group ventured some 4,500 miles (7,242 km) after two months at sea.
caption: Contemporary seagoing dugout from the Pacific Northwest
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