Aboriginal Dugout Canoes were a significant advancement in canoe technology. Dugouts were stronger, faster, and more efficient than previous types of bark canoes. The Aboriginals' use of these canoes brought about many changes to both their hunting practices and society. The Australian Aboriginal people began using these canoes around the 17th century in coastal regions of Australia. As the popularity of dugouts grew their use quickly spread across the continent.

Aboriginal can were constructed much more easily than previous types of vessels, such as bark canoes. This ease of construction played a significant role in the dugout canoes’ widespread use. While earlier vessels required a great deal of labor and time-consuming sewing to make, dugout canoes were constructed easily and in a shorter period of time. First, one would have to cut down a tree and shape the exterior into an even form. The sides of the canoe were shaped in one of two ways. They were either carved straight up and down or in a "u" shape, curving in towards the center of the boat. Next, one would literally dig out the inner wood of the log to make space for the oarsmen to sit and paddle. In some early dugout canoes, aboriginals would not make the bottoms of the canoes smooth, but would instead carve "ribbing" into the vessel. Ribbing (literally sections of wood that looked like ribs) was used to stabilize bark canoes, and though not necessary to dugout canoes, was a carryover in the transition from one canoe type to the other. Both the chopping down of the tree and the digging out of the log were easily done with an iron-axe. They also made there canoes out of tree bark, sticky tree sap to hold it together, and fallen tree limbs.

A dugout or dugout canoe is a boat made from a hollowed tree trunk. Other names for this type of boat are logboat and monoxylon. Monoxylon (μονόξυλον) (pl: monoxyla) is Greek -- mono- (single) + ξύλον xylon (tree) -- and is mostly used in classic Greek texts. In Germany they are called einbaum ("one tree" in English)). Some, but not all, pirogues are also constructed in this manner.

Dugouts are the oldest boats archaeologists have found, dating back about eight thousand years. This is probably because they are made of massive pieces of wood, which tend to preserve better than, e.g., bark canoes. Einbaum dug-out boat finds in Germany date back to the Stone Age. Along with bark canoe and hide kayak, dugout boats were also used by indigenous peoples of the Americas.

Construction of a dugout begins with the selection of a log of suitable dimensions. Sufficient wood needed to be removed to make the vessel relatively light in weight and buoyant, yet still strong enough to support the crew and cargo. Specific types of wood were often preferred based on their strength, durability, and density. The shape of the boat is then fashioned to minimize drag, with sharp ends at the bow and stern.

Bill Helen ( /həˈliːn/) is a Canadian artist, teacher, and designer in the Northwest Coast style and a member of the Tsimshian First Nation of northwestern British Columbia. His ancestry is from the Gits'iis tribe in the village of Lax Kw'alaams, B.C. His father was Arthur Helen-(pronounced Hel-een) (Haymaas). And his father was a leader of a tribe.

His accomplishments include designing the patch worn by astronauts on the U.S. space shuttle Columbia in 1996 and the carving of the world's largest (180' 3" tall) totem pole known as the Spirit of Lekwammen, carved for the Commonwealth Games.

He is a cousin to the author Calvin Helin, whose 2006 book, Dances with Dependency, he illustrated.

First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognized First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The total population is nearly 700,000 people. Under the Employment Equity Act, First Nations are a "designated group", along with women, visible minorities, and persons with physical or mental disabilities. They are not defined as a visible minority under the Act or by the criteria of Statistics Canada.

The term First Nations (most often used in the plural) has come into general use for the indigenous peoples of the Americas located in what is now Canada, except for the Arctic-situated Inuit, and peoples of mixed European-First Nations ancestry called Métis. The singular, commonly used on culturally politicized reserves, is the term First Nations person (when gender-specific, First Nations man or First Nations woman). A more recent trend is for members of various nations to refer to themselves by their tribal or national identity only, e.g., "I'm Haida," or "We're Kwantlens," in recognition of the distinctiveness of First Nations ethnicities.

Charles Robert Darwin, FRS (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.

Darwin published his theory with compelling evidence for evolution in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, overcoming scientific rejection of earlier concepts of transmutation of species. By the 1870s the scientific community and much of the general public had accepted evolution as a fact. However, many favoured competing explanations and it was not until the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed in which natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution. In modified form, Darwin's scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the diversity of life.

Darwin's early interest in nature led him to neglect his medical education at the University of Edinburgh; instead, he helped to investigate marine invertebrates. Studies at the University of Cambridge encouraged his passion for natural science. His five-year voyage on HMS Beagle established him as an eminent geologist whose observations and theories supported Charles Lyell's uniformitarian ideas, and publication of his journal of the voyage made him famous as a popular author.