A dugout canoe is a simple boat made by hollowing a tree trunk. You can come and see this canoe at the TIC Jezero in Kočevje, but first, have a look at how it got crafted below. This special creation from a spruce tree trunk measures 4 meters in length and is 80 cm wide, which makes it a total of 2 cubic meters of wood. Its weight, when the wood is not soaked with water, is between 150 and 200 kg.

The dugout canoe was made by hand, without the use of a chainsaw, and its makers used various tools for woodworking (axes, saws, hand lifting hooks, chisels, and wedge tools). Using fire, they burned out the inside of the log and removed about 50% of the wood mass. A large part of the wood was removed by the lengthwise splitting of the wood (the entire bottom and upper part of the log). At further treatment, they used hand lifting tool - hand-forged working tools, with which they chiseled and perfected carving of wood.

The production of the dugout canoe took place in 4 stages. First, the wood mass was removed from the log by the lengthwise splitting of the wood and leveling its lower and upper parts.

This was then followed by burning out the insides of the log and by repeated sawing, gouging, removal of charcoal and ash, coating the sides with clay, and further burning. They protected the edges from the fire with clay so that the wood could only burn towards the inside of the log.