The canoe, both the dugout, and the various bark types, was effective enough in the most inhabited parts of the continent, due to the vast number of rivers, lakes and streams, for them to have lively trading networks and communications networks.
That is why for many years, explorers, trappers, and settlers adopted Indian canoes as well- they were simply economical and practical.
Most men living today wouldn’t be able to make even the crudest dugout and would have no idea how to prepare and utilize materials for making the more elaborate fine birchbark canoe, certainly no idea how to cut and bend the components, assemble, stitch and waterproof one.
In the northwest no need for roads and wheels, either- so they developed huge wooden watercraft to go whaling and fishing and trading...and slaving.
The same goes for the specialized clothing and equipment of Arctic peoples, and their seafaring kayak- the average person today couldn’t begin to fashion one.
Or the bundled reed canoes which are probably the simplest and easiest.
Maybe today a guy could make a bullboat without calling for help.
But in North America the people did lack the repeated waves of invasion, occupation and conquest that drove technological achievements in other parts of the world. There were minor conflicts and battles before European settlement, but nothing major North of Mexico involving tens of thousands of soldiers.
Without the endless invasions and intercontinental conflicts Europe and the Middle East and the far east would be just as primitive. New and different knowledge and technologies would not have been imposed, stolen or exchanged at such high rates, absent the pressure of organized warfare and conquest and enslavement.
There were repeated wave of different peoples entering North America and displacing or absorbing the previous - the Lenape peoples were the last wave before the European wave.
...nail two boards together or start a fire without matches. When I told high school students that I make gears on my milling machine at home, one responded, "I thought you had to buy those things".