Our native river cane is a bamboo, but it can be quite different from a lot of the Asian ones. It's closely related to Tonkin cane and Japanese arrow bamboo, which also make great arrows. Cane seems to be a bit more tolerant of spine variation as a shaft because of the natural taper. I flex mine by hand, and can usually get them pretty close to the right spine just by feel. I've never tried chokecherry myself, but it was used a lot by the Plains tribes as arrow material, so I would guess that it makes good shafts. Some other good shaft materials you probably have in your area are redosier and gray dogwoods, highbush cranberry and other viburnums.
