As a boatbuilder, the scene I most wanted to get right was a man making a canoe the old way. You burn a log hollow, scrape out the char with a clamshell, and burn it again. English writers of the 1600s described the method, and I leaned on them.
In the book, Wenepoykin's first memory is his father's canoe coming around the ledges of the Great Neck. Years later, in a hungry winter, he makes one alone and launches it off those same rocks to catch cod for his people.
Every time I walk out there now, I think about it.
The Wing is on Amazon now, paperback and Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HL8VP2JM
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