In Victoria Aboriginal people built canoes out of different types of bark - Stringy Bark or Mountain Ash or Red Gum bark, depending on the region.

Bark was stripped from the tree. It was fired to shape, seal and make it watertight, then moulded into a low-freeboard flat-bottomed craft.

Some canoes were very large, able to seat up to a dozen people. Others were only large enough to hold food. Sometimes canoes were built to last several seasons, other times they were built quickly for just one use. Sometimes, as in this sketch by S.T. Gill, fires would be built inside the canoe.