Museum of Mississippi History readies Native American canoe for opening

JACKSON, Miss. — A canoe that’s hundreds of years old will be one of the largest artifacts for visitors to see in the new Museum of Mississippi History.

Workers are preparing a display case for the canoe that is 25.5 feet (7.8 meters) long and was made by Native Americans chipping, scraping and burning out the lower trunk of a bald cypress tree.

Curators believe it was made between about 1500 and 1600 from a tree that was already about 200 years old.

Museum director Rachel Myers said the name of the group of people who made the canoe is unknown. It will be displayed in one of the museum’s first galleries, which shows the First Peoples from 13,000 B.C. to A.D. 1518.

Workers from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers unearthed the canoe during a dredging operation in 1989 in Steele Bayou in the Mississippi Delta. Conservator Kathryn Etre said the canoe had been buried in silt, which protected it from rotting.

The piece is known as the Swan Lake Canoe because of the area where it was found. After it arrived at the state Department of Archives and History in the early 1990s, workers preserved it with a compound that strengthened the structure of the wood. The canoe was put into storage. It will be displayed in a case that will protect it from oxygen, humidity and visitors’ bodies.

The Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum are scheduled to open Dec. 9 to celebrate the bicentennial of statehood. The state-funded museums are being built side-by-side near the state Capitol in downtown Jackson.

Ronald Newhart, a display fabricator, puts the finishing touches on a anchored stand that will have a sealed case containing a giant Native American dugout, known as the Swan Lake Canoe, in the Museum of Mississippi History, in Jackson, Miss. The platform-style dugout is rare and believed to have been manufactured by Native Americans between AD 1500 and 1600.

https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_Canoe.jpg.optimal.jpgRonald Newhart, a display fabricator, puts the finishing touches on a anchored stand that will have a sealed case containing a giant Native American dugout, known as the Swan Lake Canoe, in the Museum of Mississippi History, in Jackson, Miss. The platform-style dugout is rare and believed to have been manufactured by Native Americans between AD 1500 and 1600. Rogelio V. Solis | AP photo

Conservator Kathryn Etre discusses the preservation techniques she and others are employing to protect the canoe. The canoe is over twenty-five feet long, about 28 inches at its widest point, and about 14 inches deep. It was constructed in one piece from the lower trunk of a bald cypress tree.

https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_Canoe1.jpg.optimal.jpgConservator Kathryn Etre discusses the preservation techniques she and others are employing to protect the canoe. The canoe is over twenty-five feet long, about 28 inches at its widest point, and about 14 inches deep. It was constructed in one piece from the lower trunk of a bald cypress tree. Rogelio V. Solis | AP photo

Signage promoting the two new Mississippi history museums rests before the Museum of Mississippi History, left, and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. The facilities are in the process of preparing exhibits for placement in the two buildings.

https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_Canoe2.jpg.optimal.jpgSignage promoting the two new Mississippi history museums rests before the Museum of Mississippi History, left, and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. The facilities are in the process of preparing exhibits for placement in the two buildings. Rogelio V. Solis | AP photo

Jo Miles-Seely, carefully vacuums the fine dust from the cracks and grooves in the giant Native American dugout, known as the Swan Lake Canoe.

https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_Canoe3.jpg.optimal.jpgJo Miles-Seely, carefully vacuums the fine dust from the cracks and grooves in the giant Native American dugout, known as the Swan Lake Canoe. Rogelio V. Solis | AP photo