Snoqualmie Tribal woodcarver applies finishing touches to canoe
June 30, 2011
 John Mullen, Snoqualmie Tribe woodcarver, drops a white-hot lava rock into a new dugout cedar canoe. (Photo by Dan Catchpole) |
John Mullen begins stoking the fire Sunday night. He and fellow Snoqualmie Tribe members add thick logs to the blaze outside the tribe’s woodcarving workshop. Once the fire is roaring, he adds lava stones. They sit in the flames until they are glowing hot.
It’s Monday morning by the time the stones are ready to come out.
Mullen digs a shovel into the fire and pulls out a stone the size of a bread loaf. Carrying it with the shovel, he walks 10 feet to a freshly carved cedar dugout canoe that sits waist high and is full of water.
He dumps the stone in. Steam rises in the air, and the water hisses.
Snoqualmie Tribal woodcarver applies finishing touches to canoe
June 30, 2011
