I can talk a little about Pacific Northwest dugout canoes from a maritime archaeologist's perspective!
So the first thing to understand about PNW dugout canoes is that they're deceptively simple in design. There's a long, bad history of people looking at dugout canoes and going "oh, how primitive", when the opposite is true. They're very difficult to make well, and even more stylistically simple forms require a good amount of knowledge and skill in construction and use.
Image 1: An unfinished canoe in Haida Gwaii
PNW canoes like those of the Haida, Nuu-chah-nulth, Kwakwaka'wakw, Coast Salish, and Makah nations (amongst many others) are almost entirely made from a single trunk of red cedar, which, depending on techniques, could even be used to make two canoes. Before commercial logging destroyed old growth forests, these canoes could reach over 60 feet in length (18 meters) — to put in perspective, this is two thirds the length of Captain Cook's ship HMS Endeavour.
Each PNW culture has its own way of making canoes, and styles vary from region to region. The fascinating thing about PNW canoes is that they are essentially tailored to the environment where they're constructed. Nuu-chah-nulth canoes, designed for the west coast of Vancouver Island, have a high prow (front) and a low stern (back) which allows them to be launched directly into the strong ocean surf that is a trademark of the region. (Canoe crews would then have to either turn around or paddle backwards when beaching the canoe.)
Image 2: A West Coast Nuu-chah-nulth style canoe with its signature prow and stern
Broadly speaking, once a red cedar tree was cut, the initial shaping of the canoe would take place right there — if any defect was found in the material, the canoe would be abandoned, as dugout canoes require high quality wood. This is one of the reasons why in some parts of the PNW, you can find half-finished canoes in the forest. Once the initial shaping was complete after months of work, the canoe would be hauled down to the beach for finishing. One of the major techniques in finishing a canoe is steaming, which allows the wood to soften and expand with the addition of spacers, resulting in a light, strong watercraft that is wider than the tree it was carved from.
The technological capabilities of PNW canoes are unmatched for the region. Nations along the coast engaged in long distance trade, as well as warfare, and different styles of canoes were made for these different purposes. Makah canoes were capable of travelling over 40 kilometres offshore during whale hunts, and I have been told a story of Haida travellers many centuries ago who returned after many years away from a place where the locals ate strange white maggot-like food in bowls (possibly rice). It's also worth remembering that canoes perform better in the conditions of the PNW than European-style ships. A key difference between canoes and rigged ships is that canoes can hug the shoreline and are less vulnerable to being blown onto rocks by strong wind. While there are some significant trade-offs, this manoeuvrability makes them much better suited than the ships that Europeans arrived to the PNW in. It is also possible that they used woven bark sails in their canoes, though the existence of sails in pre-Contact North America is difficult to prove.
Unfortunately, with the colonisation of the PNW, traditional canoebuilding was threatened by colonial powers and banned under Canada's Indian Act. The only form of canoebuilding allowed in Canada was the racing canoe, and as a result, all technological development was channelled into the racing canoe, which remains a vibrant part of modern First Nations cultures in BC.
Image 3: The Loo Taas (Wave Eater), built in 1986 by master Haida artist Bill Reid — the first Haida canoe built in Skidegate, Haida Gwaii, in over 100 years
