Eye of the storm, which has now shifted eastward so north winds should be hitting those stations now.

Yes, there are thousands of years of this scenario possibly playing out. It does not speak to the knowledge of the people, but of the people to tolerate experimentation -- which is really cool.

A red oak canoe would last minutes to hours.

I used to do presentations to hundreds of 1st-3rd graders each year featuring red vs white oak permeability.

Little kids were screaming and laughing while blowing bubbles out of 4-inch pieces of red oak. Not remotely possible in white oak.

The resin on hardwood to be impermeable is also a possibility but seemed unlikely because if they had resin (from white/red pine in this area) they would have just made the dugout out of white pine.

If red oak was chosen over white oak, it could be that is often a bigger tree with fewer branches -- and perhaps because it was more likely to form large vertical fire scars conducive to dugout formation. It could have been rubbed with rendered fat to plug up the xylem.

The canoes are 14C-dated. I have been in contact with some of these researchers and have the dates. The scenario you describe could have occurred.

It seems possible that some people making a dugout canoe did not know about white vs red oak species differences in wood properties and that those red oak canoes were just more likely to sink fully intact and thereby more likely to be found hundreds to thousands of years later.

Beyond that, this injury formation would need to be completed without local cambial dieback around the edge of the tree ) so it could keep growing.

It is just impossible from my estimation and alternative hypotheses should be explored. The one that is right there is survivorship bias.

To induce tyloses formation you would have to injure a tree so severely that drought stress was caused throughout the sapwood without killing the tree.

Then, the tree would need to keep growing and this would need to be repeated every ~5 years or so for 10-50 years to get enough wood for a dugout.

Red oaks can and do form tyloses, but they only do so in the sapwood (the living outer portion of the tree) and only under severe hydraulic stress.

This often happens after red oak trees are cut down and before they are cut up for wood.

However, oak sapwood is narrow, usually < 1 inch wide...

Red oak canoes are surprising because these species have huge vessels that conduct water really well when alive and when MOST of the wood is dead.

White oaks are similar but plug up ALL their vessels with tyloses.

This is why white oaks are used for barrels for wine, whisky, etc but not red oak...

Also the pungent conifer yet very sweet aroma of Doug-fir being reduced from trees to lumber and chips in the PNW.

I have been meaning to get down there. I have areas mapped out from General Land Office surveys and modern satellite imagery that I think will have the most red pine stumps. White pine stumps are more abundant in most cases but are always too decayed, which does not help us understand fire history.

This is in Michigan. Hiawatha National Forest, old dune sequence between Lake Superior and Au Train Lake.

No worries, I ended up being too busy today.