A small sliver of wood from a birch-bark canoe. It is stitched to a piece of paper which reads: 'Part of Canoe in which Franklin discovered 610 miles of new coast (1826).' Franklin actually used boats rather than birch bark canoes to explore the coast of the Arctic Ocean during his second overland expedition. On his first overland expedition he found birch-bark canoes too fragile to deal with coastal conditions.