Birch bark canoes. As old-timey as you imagine.

Canoes are little death traps on the water. They can't handle a wave, so every time someone flies by on a speed boat at 75mph you need to angle your canoe head-on to the incoming tsunami wake just created or you're taking a header into water. And nothing is sexier than wet jeans and the great suction cup effect they create on your crotch.

But birch bark canoes are from a simpler time. A time when Levi Strauss didn't create jeans, when gas engines didn't exist, and canoes mainly found themselves placed on remote little rivers as a means of transportation.

And some folks became great at making canoes, as Charles Kuralt showed in one of his video essays. Bill Heifman lived in the rural woods of Minnesota with his wife, and no one made a better birch bark canoe than he did.

As we can see, ol' Bill mocks us by wearing jeans that suck in the diaphragm and go to his ribcage. A canoe maker rockin' the jeans.

I see how it is, Bill. I see where you're going with this.