The Nuu-chah-nulth canoe design is recognized as one of the finest and most efficient hull designs in the world. It has been designed by people who have lived on the West Coast of Vancouver Island for thousands of years, for conditions of the ocean in its many moods. The stability of the canoe has been developed over a very long time and today it is one of the most seaworthy crafts that have ever been put to use on this coast. Small canoes for duck hunting or clam digging measured 10 feet, while the largest, freight canoes, were about 50 feet long. The most common size was between 32 and 35 feet, used for travel, warfare, and whale-hunting. (Humpback whales were hunted 30 miles offshore.)

		Canoe Carving Joe Martin was born October 1953. He has lived in Clayoquot Sound all of his life and grew up in canoes with his late father Chief Robert Martin senior. Joe began learning canoe carving at the young age of 5, when his father would take him along to an island near the village of Opitsaht. There, the only guideline little Joe had was to not go beyond such and such a tree, out of Robert's sight. He was not expected to do anything but watch, as his dad carved a canoe using only eye judgement and hand tools: a D-adze, an axe, a planer and a drawknife. Joe began canoe carving seriously in 1984 with his father and brother Carl in Tofino inlet. They hand-hauled a cedar log, which measured 5 feet in diameter by 25 feet long, from the forest to the village of Opitsaht, and there carved it into a 25-foot canoe. He remembers carving many canoes since then. "During a blockade of a logging company in the years 1984-85 we carved 3 more canoes. This was done to show our connection to this land and to show that our culture is still very much alive from knowledge that has been passed down from our ancestors", Joe has carved canoes for several Nuu-chah-nulth tribes, the most famous one being sold to the Makah Nation in Neah Bay, Washington, from which a grey whale was successfully hunted in 1999. To date he has carved 25 canoes. Many people have passed knowledge on to him along the way. His Father, the late Chief Robert Martin Sr; and the late Chief Ben Andrews whose simple techniques gave him much help. He also credits Moses Smith, and many other Nuu-chah-nulth elders that have since passed on.

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