Thanks grip, always a pleasure to see that again. The background, the scenery, is many summers of memories for me.
Our common birch species, Betula papyrifera, the Paper Birch, is really nice to work with. Not the same as your birch.
The thwarts are fresh/green birch wood, carved with a typical Mocotaugan crooked knife (dry seasoned wood is nearly impossible to shape, it's hardened up so much.)
Found an ad somewhere in the last couple of years, a birch bark canoe, ready for the water, is about $6,000.00 CDN.
His blue boat with the outboard is a Chestnut V-stern Freighter canoe. Absolute Canadian classic, a real pleasure to travel in or work from (only 5 months for me).
I've learned that they are not made any more and the restoration of a wreck is very costly. I used a 21', measured at the waterline, maybe 23' total, holds a dead moose, too.