Paddle-to-the-Sea by Holling Clancy Holling, 1941

A Native American boy carves a canoe with a little man sitting in it because he has a dream of a wooden man sitting in a canoe on a snowbank. Once the carving is done, he places it at the top of a snowbank, knowing that when the snow melts in the spring, it will take the Paddle Person out to the sea. This book recounts the travels of Paddle-to-the-Sea as it goes through the Great Lakes to the Saint Lawrence River and eventually to the Atlantic Ocean.