alt Hacker NewsTechnical overview of the invention and manufacture of paper boats in this chapter: https://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/nhb/paperc/c05.html
I guess that they were a sort of intermediate technology between wooden canoes and fiberglass?
Quick Google says that the lightest modern canoes are made of carbon fiber and weigh as little as 20 pounds.
Birch bark canoes are the traditional construction in e.g. the Boundary Waters region. Wood-canvas canoes are built superficially similarly but don't use the tension of the canvas structurally the same way a bark canoe does.
Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America by Adney and Chappelle is basically the main source for information on bark canoes and how they're built.
The Art of the Canoe with Joe Seliga is out of print, AFAIK, but is a good overview of how wood canvas canoes are built.
The Survival of the Bark Canoe by John McPhee is more narrative and worth a read too.
Laminated wood strip canoes are a more modern invention. Bear Mountain Boats has a good book on how they're built, and Nick Offerman did a video on building one.
And yeah, modern Kevlar boats are ridiculously light. The canonical Boundary Waters touring canoe is the Wenonah Minnesota II, and the lightest version is 43 pounds in Kevlar. I believe graphite is the same weight but stiffer. Fiberglass construction is basically comparable, but heavier, as are some of the Royalex-equivalent materials.