Transportation

Rivers served as the main avenues of transportation in both winter and summer. Athabaskans used birch bark canoes, rafts, and moose skin boats. They sewed the seams with spruce roots and waterproofed them with a hot spruce pitch. In the fall, the Athabaskans constructed log rafts and moose skin boats to return from hunting trips.

In winter, the Athabaskans traveled on snowshoes and pulled toboggans by hand. They built the toboggans from small birch trees or branches. The Athabaskans made two types of snowshoes for travel: long and wide ones for deep powder and shorter, narrower ones for packed snow. Snowshoe frames were made from birch branches and the webbing of caribou or moose sinew with fastenings of rawhide. Usually, men made the frames, and women laced the webbing. 

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