PHOTOS: Shinnecock Museum Makes Dugout Canoe

Starting last week, motorists driving past the Shinnecock Indian Nation Cultural Center and Museum on Montauk Highway may have noticed a whiff of smoke coming from a large log.

Museum workers have begun the process of making a dugout canoe, from a single white pine log. The canoe — which will be seaworthy — is intended for a historic village exhibition on the museum grounds, which will also include a longhouse that will be made next.

Matauqus Tarrant, the assistant curator of the museum, worked with a tool called an adze Monday afternoon to chip away at the log and dig deeper. An adze resembles a hatchet, but the head is shaped for carving out wood, rather than chopping or splitting. He said he is also using a hatchet, as well as a froe — a hand tool for cleaving wood — to get the job done. He also anticipates burning the cavity in the log again.

Traditionally, Tarrant said, the Shinnecocks would use no hand tools to make such a canoe; the log would be burnt out, scraped with a clam shell and sanded with sandstone. However, he said that process would have taken a crew two weeks to complete, working 24/7. To expedite the process, they started with a log from a Commack saw mill, and used modern hand tools.

"We want to get this in the water at the end of the week," Tarrant said.

The historic village will be ready for Memorial Day Weekend, he added.