Chickasaw Cultural Center Director of Operations Brad Deramus admires a huge dugout canoe dating to approximately 1500 A.D. It is on loan to the center from the Department of Mississippi Archives and History to augment the world-class Dugout Canoes: Paddling through the Americas currently on display through May 6, 2015, at the Sulphur, Oklahoma, location.
SULPHUR, OK-They were the metaphorical pickup trucks of their day. Native Americans used them to ferry families across rivers, move trade goods to market and a means of travel.
Dugout canoes were difficult to fashion into water-worthy vessels. All were made from a single tree trunk, fire coals placed atop it and then the charred wood was hollowed out with an adze or similar sharp-edged tool made of stone, sea shells and, eventually, metal.
In 2000, a group of Florida high school students stumbled onto what is believed to be the largest treasure trove of dugout canoes in the world – 101 of them...
