Byers continued to work his “odd jobs” and then came across two items that finally put him in the driver’s seat of his own destiny - actually building a birch bark canoe. He found a book entitled: The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America, at the library and it showed, in extensive detail, how to build canoes. A friend then found a video of two men in Quebec building a birch bark canoe and gave it to Byers. It was on from there for Byers as he finally constructed his first birch bark canoe in 1994 while he was living in Falconbridge.
“Finding the book was like finding a lost scroll for me,” Byers said. “From the time of that experience in the store with that canoe, I had wanted to build a birch bark canoe but had no idea where and how to begin. Now I did. The video gave me the courage to go for it and build my first canoe. I would watch the video and pause it and go out to my garage and build the canoe. I went back and forth like that for a month-and-a-half. I fucked it up. It was rough, but it was good enough for me. I had done it. I built a birch bark canoe.”
Byers sold that canoe for $500 to a man who needed it for a film. Byers built his second canoe the following year in 1995 and sold it to a man in Wisconsin, United States, for $2,500.
Inside the workshop, Tom Byers starts his day with a fresh brew of coffee.