Tom Byers is Métis and grew up along the St. Lawrence seaway in Canada, the historic heartland of the fur trade era. He has always lived near water.

Since 1994, he has honed the craft of birchbark canoe making on the banks of the Vermilion River in northern Ontario near Killarney Wilderness Park.

Tom's canoes have literally traveled the world including Hawaii, Florida, Montana, Wisconsin, Ohio and throughout Canada.

For example, in 1998, Tom built with Ian and Sally Wilson a 17-foot Algonquin canoe for their epic 1,600-mile canoe adventure following the path of the voyageurs through northern Canada, which was documented in their book Wilderness Journey.

In 2002, two Norwegians used a 16-foot Chippewa birchbark canoe built by Tom on a 30 day paddling expedition on the Thelon River, Northwest Territories.

If you have attended a fur trade reenactment in the northeastern U.S., you may have seen one of Tom's Abenaki canoes on the water.