When bark of the red gum tree is available it is always used for canoe making because it withstands the weather without rolling or splitting. A canoe is mostly made from one single sheet of bark. When trees are available with a natural bend these are chosen, because canoes thus attained do not require so much work to give them the peculiar shape. When the bark is peeled from the tree, spreaders are at once inserted at intervals of a few feet to avoid rolling in, for as long as sap is still in the bark. Short props are also stuck under the bow and stern so that they might not drop too much under their own weight.

Then the vessel is left to dry for about 14 days, and when it has dried properly it keeps its shape. After a duration of two or three years such a canoe becomes heavy and macerated and accordingly inflexible; then it is necessary to replace it with a new one. The tree from which the bark is taken is chosen according to the size one wants to give the canoe.

The pole or oar that drives the canoe is about 10 or 12 feet long and two or three inches wide. At the other end three sharp tines are attached, two of which have barbs. With one side of this instrument the native drives his boat through the water; with the other he spears a fish coming his way. The oar is made out of pine wood if such is attainable, or from other light timber.

Sometimes a lump of clay is put on the bottom of the canoe to serve as a stove on which a small fire is kept; it serves the double purpose of keeping the native warm and of cooking some of the fish caught. The canoe is, for the natives who live in the vicinity of rivers or great deep expanses of water, a highly prized possession.

Although trees with a natural bulge are preferred, they are not always available, as mentioned above. Stringybark and the bark of the tree known by the name of ‘grey box’ are often used. When the bark is stripped from the tree some of the outer, rougher layer is split off at the end for a width of about a foot, so that only the flexible inner bark remains. The thus thinned out endings of the bark piece are then folded lengthwise and wrapped with a strong string, which is made out of the fibres of kurrajong or stringybark. Firm ropes made from this tough stringy bark or from thin tendrils are then tied at two or three locations from one side to the other across the vessel to prevent expansion sideways. Spreaders of the same number are attached at the inside of the canoe to serve as ribs and secure the sides of the boat from falling inwards. The folding of the bark does not only hold it straight, but causes it to bend upwards, so that when the binding is finished and the vessel is launched, the ends are a little higher than the sides of the canoe and jut above the water line.

In New South Wales, Victoria, southeastern Queensland and South Australia, and in parts of the Northern Territory, one piece of bark is used to make a canoe. In certain parts of the north the natives use two, three or more pieces of bark, and it is notable that such craft are made more skillfully than those usual in the south, a fact from which one might surmise foreign influence, such as Malays and Papuans, in relatively recent times. In my opinion the canoe made out of one piece of bark is a pure Australian development, as I was unable to detect its occurrence in any other region. The thick, smooth trunks of the eucalypt trees in Australia might easily have suggested to the mind of the natives the use of the bark for huts and canoes. Owing to the warmth of the climate the saps are, during a large part of the year, in ascending and descending circulation, so the stripping and removal of the bark from the trunk becomes a simple and easy task, even with so rough a tool as the stone axe.