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Arrow shaft wood

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agd68:
Hi all. I`m a traditional archer begining to dabble in the primitive side. I have a few questions. Are cain and bamboo the same thing? Do you spine cain shafts like othe woods. I live in Eastern Canada, any local archers have advise on good arrow woods.What is chokecherry like as a shaft?

Hillbilly:
Our native river cane is a bamboo, but it can be quite different from a lot of the Asian ones. It's closely related to Tonkin  cane and Japanese arrow bamboo, which also make great arrows. Cane seems to be a bit more tolerant of spine variation as a shaft because of the natural taper. I flex mine by hand, and can usually get them pretty close to the right spine just by feel. I've never tried chokecherry myself, but it was used a lot by the Plains tribes as arrow material, so I would guess that it makes good shafts. Some other good shaft materials you probably have in your area are redosier and gray dogwoods, highbush cranberry and other viburnums.

jamie:
like steve said the vibunums and dogwoods are great. cherry doesnt like to stay straight but it works

recurve shooter:
i duno if ya have it there but sourwood works great!!! ;)

JackCrafty:
I grew up in NH and dogwood was the best stuff I could find.  You guys probably have a lot of grey dogwood and red osier up there.  The only dogwood that is difficult to work with is silky dogwood (if I remember correctly).  It gets "fuzzy" when you scrape the bark off.

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