Birch bark canoes, Kuralt, wood

I was looking for a filmatization of Jack Kerouac's On The Road, which I've just started reading. But oddly, there doesn't seem to be any! (A bit strange, revered as it is.) Instead I found an old and clearly beloved TV show, On The Road with Charles Kuralt. Here is a couple of kool segments.

I don't understand how you can build a canoe, much less a really good one, from birch bark and without glue or nails.  [Ah, sowing and pitch. Here's a vid, and bit more here.] It's amazing what some people can do with wood. It's a particularly difficult material because unless you "cheat" and glaze it, it will expand and contract with humidity, and all the joints has to be carefully constructed to take care of that! (I was educated a little by a friend who built me an amazing tilting drawing table with inlaid wood in the nineties.)