Well, recently I have gotten the bug to build everything I can think of. I play the mandolin, and thought "why don't I try and build a mandolin?" So far it is coming along but I don't have all of the necessary tools right now so it is on hold. I do a lot of fly fishing and already tie my own flies, so I thought "I should try and build a rod myself, why not bamboo?" I ordered my first bamboo last year on my 30th birthday which is Aug 15th. So far I have made 9 and counting. When I got back from Canada, I thought about how nice it would be to have a canoe to fish from and started researching the building process. I stumbled across this site and others with info on birchbark and here I am. I plan on building making another canoe before the birchbark but that is only because there isn't a whole lot of spruce and birch in Alabama. I figure it can be a long project during my trips to Canada over the next several years. The idea really intrigues me because I like to say I "grew up" in Canada because my parents have taken me every year since my birth to the same lake. I have done a lot of exploring around the area fishing, portaging, hiking, picking blueberries, etc. I think the idea of having an authentic birchbark canoe to paddle on the lake would be really special. To harvest all of the materials from the surrounding land and put them together to form a functional water craft to further explore really says something to me. I tend to over do things I am interested in and can tell this will be one of them. You may not here from me for a while. Probably closer to July when I star preparing for my next Canada trip. Then I will start asking about the cedar more in depth. Thanks for the info.