The Survival of the Bark Canoe

I'm a few chapters into John McPhee's account of Henri Vaillancourt's endeavor to save the lost art of birch bark canoe building.  At the time of the book's publication (1975), Vaillancourt was one of four in the world who specialized was considered an expert in birch bark canoe building. He dedicated his whole life to it, made almost no money off of it, and did work near perfection with only a handful of tools. He claims he could build a canoe with only a crooked knife. He never measured anything, yet his worked was extremely precise and accurate, and was always amazingly symmetrical. He could give you the measurements of exactly how long the pieces should be, using only his eyes.
Though I'm only a little of the way into John McPhee's wonderful tale, I'm already so impressed by this man's dedication. He's less a builder than an artist. He dedicated his lfe to preserving such an obscure craft. You read it and think, Why? Why does he spend all his time doing this? But at the same time, you can see exactly why he does what he does, and you feel a crazy urge to find your own obscure lost art and dedicate your own life to it, just like him.