The Depository · Browse · The Americas
The Depository documents 22 techniques in Canada; by risk level: 5 critically endangered, 5 endangered, 12 vulnerable. Each record opens with a public summary; the full research record is free to view once registered.
The construction of wood-framed winter travel snowshoes laced with babiche (rawhide thong, traditionally from moose or caribou hide), a foundational Subarctic and Northeastern Woodlands technology that spreads a traveler's weight across…
A highly systematized two- and three-dimensional design language built from continuous, swelling and tapering 'formlines,' ovoids, and U- and S-forms, applied to monumental cedar totem poles as well as boxes, canoes, and regalia, depicting…
A large two-wheeled wooden cart invented by the Métis of the Red River Colony around 1801, constructed entirely without metal fasteners — wood, rawhide, and sinew only — specifically so it could be repaired anywhere a stand of trees was…
Carving of a unique black carbonaceous shale found at a single protected quarry on Haida Gwaii, developed since the early 19th century first as small ceremonial pipes and increasingly as detailed model poles, platters, and sculptural works…
The carving of a crescent- or oval-shaped soapstone lamp burning rendered seal or other animal fat with a moss or arctic-cotton-grass wick, the primary historic source of light, heat, cooking, and clothes-drying for Inuit households across…
The carving of figurative and narrative sculpture from regionally sourced stone — principally serpentine from Kinngait (Cape Dorset), basalt from Arviat and Rankin Inlet, and other locally distinct stone types — developed from…
The construction of a lightweight, watertight canoe from a single sheet-assembled envelope of birch bark stitched with split spruce root, built around a steamed and bent cedar-rib frame with ash gunwales and sealed with spruce gum —…
The carving of large, seaworthy dugout canoes from a single western red cedar log, historically ranging from small river canoes to ocean-going vessels capable of long-distance trade and travel along the entire Northwest Coast, requiring…
A colorful, diagonally patterned woolen sash produced entirely by finger-weaving without any loom, resulting from the historical blending of Indigenous finger-weaving technique with French-Canadian braided-garter tradition, adopted as an…
A twined-weaving tradition using a distinctive long-shafted, large-diameter spindle whorl often carved with transformative crest imagery, producing blankets historically woven from the wool of a now-extinct domesticated Salish wool dog,…
A distinctive Inuit women's parka engineered with an oversized hood and a capacious internal pouch (the amaut) allowing an infant to be carried directly against the mother's back in shared body warmth from birth until roughly age two,…
The construction of multi-layered waterproof or insulated sealskin and caribou-skin boots using chewed-softened skin and a partial-penetration waterproof stitch, historically requiring significant physical strength to sew through thick,…
The construction of a traditional Arctic travel sled using two long wooden or, historically in wood-scarce regions, bone or antler runners connected by numerous lashed wooden crossbars, built without rigid fasteners so the entire structure…
An Indigenous art form in which small pieces of thin, folded birch bark are bitten with the canine teeth to create intricate, symmetrical geometric and pictorial designs, historically used as an entertaining storytelling activity and as a…
All miscellaneous & heritage-adjacent craft techniques worldwide →
A distinctive floral beadwork style that fused Indigenous porcupine-quillwork design sensibility with French silk-embroidery patterns taught by Catholic mission-school nuns at Red River, becoming so visually associated with the Métis that…
A ceremonial robe made from wool trade blankets appliquéd with a family crest figure and outlined in mother-of-pearl or abalone buttons, developed in the early-to-mid 19th century across the Northwest Coast from the Coast Salish in…
A distinctive bark-insertion quillwork technique pioneered by the Mi'kmaq, in which dyed porcupine quills are pushed through holes punctured in birchbark to build geometric patterns on boxes, containers, and household items, developed into…
A pounded brown-ash splint basketry tradition of the four Wabanaki nations (Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Penobscot), combining a distinctive 'porcupine weave' technique — folding and pinching ash splints into sharp, spiky points —…
The engraving and repoussé shaping of gold and silver — historically often hammered out from American and Mexican silver dollar coins — into bracelets, brooches, and pendants bearing formline crest and tattoo-derived designs, developed by…
A relief printmaking technique in which an Inuit printmaker carves away the surface of a flattened stone block to leave a raised design translated from an artist's original drawing, then inks and hand-prints the design onto paper,…
Hinged, string-operated wooden masks carved to open during ceremonial performance and reveal a second figure within, most often depicting one being transforming into another, worn with a shredded cedar-bark costume during Winter Dance and…
Pysanka is the Ukrainian wax-resist decorated Easter egg tradition, carried to Canada by the first wave of Ukrainian immigrants beginning in 1891 and sustained continuously since as one of the defining folk arts of the Canadian Prairie…