Reclaiming Timber: How One Métis Carver Built a 43-Foot York Boat from Memory and Heritage

By John Wirth, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Alberta Native News – When the decade began with forced isolation, master artisan Patrick Calihou took the solitude of a quieted world to undertake a massive historic recreation: a 43-foot “York” river boat built right in the center of Fort Langley National Historic Site. Patrick shared his perspective during an interview. Spanning stem to stern, the vessel represents the absolute maximum scale of historic fur-trade rivercraft, built with a flat bottom designed to glide across the shallow sandbars of the mighty Stó:lō (Fraser) River. ​A collaborative effort sponsored by Fort Langley National Historic Site that brought together Parks Canada and Calihou, on behalf of the Métis Nation. The finished vessel now resides at the fort as a permanent landmark. But bringing it to…

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