The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 20

The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 20

Micmac_

 

The Micmac Indians appear to have occupied the Gaspé Peninsula, most of

the north shore of New Brunswick and nearly all the shores of the Bay

of Fundy as well as all of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Cape

Breton. They may have also occupied much of southern and central New

Brunswick as well, but if so they had been driven from these sections

by the Malecites before the white men came. The Micmacs were known

to the early French invaders under a variety of names; "Gaspesians,"

"Canadiens," "Sourikois," or "Souriquois," while the English colonists

of New England called them merely "Eastern Indians." The name Micmac is

said to mean "allies" and not known, but this name was in use early in

the 18th century, if not before 1700.

 

The Micmac were a hunting people with warlike characteristics; they

aided the Malecite and other New England Indians in warfare against the

early New England colonists and in later times aided the French against

the English in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. These Indians lived in an

area where water transport represented the easiest method of travel and

so they became expert builders and users of birch-bark canoes, which

they employed in hunting, fishing, general travel, and warfare.

 

The area in which they lived produced fine birch bark and suitable wood

for the framework. Through experience, they had become able to design

canoes for specific purposes and had produced a variety of models and

sizes. The hunting canoe was the smallest, being usually somewhere

between 9 and 14 feet long, with an occasional canoe as long as 15

feet. This light craft, known as a "woods canoe" and sometimes as a

"portage canoe," was intended for navigating very small streams and

for portaging. Another model, the "big-river canoe," somewhat longer

than the woods canoe, was usually between 15 and 20 feet long. A third

model, the "open water canoe," was for hunting seal and porpoise in

salt water and ranged from about 18 feet to a little over 24 feet in

length. The fourth model, the "war canoe," about which little is known,

appears to have been built in either the "big-river" or "open-water"

form, and to the same length, but sharper and with less beam so as to

be faster.

 

The tribal characteristics of the Micmac birch-bark canoes were to be

seen in the form of the midsection, in certain structural details, and

in their generally sharp, torpedo-shaped lines. The construction was

very light and marked by good workmanship. The distinctive profiles of

bow and stern, which do not appear in the canoes of other tribes in so

radical a form, were almost circular, fairing from the bottom around

into the sheer in a series of curves. The break in the profile of the

ends at the sheer, a break that marks in more or less degree, the end

profile of other tribal forms, never occurs in the Micmac canoe. At

most, a slight break in the "streamlined" curve might occur at the

point where the profile was started in the bottom, at which point there

might be a short, hard curve.

 

[Illustration: Figure 49

 

MICMAC 2-FATHOM PACK, OR WOODS, CANOE for woods travel with light

loads, used by the Nova Scotia Micmacs.]

 

The form of the sheer line of the Micmac canoes apparently varied with

the model: the woods canoe had the usual curved sheer with the point

of lowest freeboard about amidships, the big river canoe had either a

nearly straight sheer or one very slightly hogged, while the open-water

canoe had a strongly hogged sheer in which the midship portion was

often as much as 3 or 4 inches above that just inboard of the ends.

However, there is a possibility that, at one time, the sheer of all

Micmac canoes was more or less hogged. The little that is known of the

war canoes of colonial times indicate that they had the strongly hogged

sheer that now marks the open-water model, through it is also known

that some of these were really of the big-river model, which in later

times had usually no more than a vestige of the hogged sheer.

 

The hull-forms of the Micmac canoes were marked in the topsides by a

strong tumble-home, carried the full length of the hull, that gave

these canoes more beam below than at the gunwale. The form of the

midsection varied with the model; the woods canoe usually had a rather

flat bottom athwartships, the big river canoe a slightly rounded

bottom, and the open water canoe either a well-rounded bottom or one

in the form of a slightly rounded ~V~. The fore-and-aft rocker in the

bottom was always moderate, usually occurring in the last few feet near

the ends; however, many of the canoes were straight along the bottom.

This condition will be again referred to in discussing the building

beds used in this type. The ends were usually fine-lined; in plan view

the gunwales came into the ends in straight or slightly hollow lines.

The level lines below the gunwales might also be straight as they came

into the ends, but were commonly somewhat hollow; a few examples show

marked hollowness there. Predominantly, the Micmac canoes were very

sharp in the ends and paddled swiftly. Early Micmac canoes seem to have

been narrower than more recent examples, which are usually rather broad

as compared to the types used by some other tribes.

 

Structurally, the Micmac canoes were distinguished by the construction

of the ends and by their light build throughout. The canoes had no

inner framework to shape the ends; stiffness there was obtained by

placing battens outside the bark, one on each side of the hull, that

ran from the bottom of the cut in the bark required to shape the ends

to somewhat inboard of the ends of the gunwales at the sheer. These two

battens, as well as a split-root stem-band covering the raw ends of the

cut bark, were held in place by passing a spiral over-and-over lashing

around all three. Sometimes thicker battens reaching from the high

point of the ends inboard to the end thwarts were added, in which case

the side battens were stopped at the high point of the ends and there

faired into the thick battens.

 

[Illustration: Figure 50

 

MICMAC 2-FATHOM PACK, OR WOODS, CANOE with Northern Lights decoration

on bow, and seven thwarts.]

 

The gunwale structure was rather light, the maximum cross section of

the main gunwale in large canoes being rarely in excess of 1¼ inches

square. These members usually tapered slightly toward the ends of the

canoe and had a half-arrowhead form where they were joined. Old canoes

had no guard or outwale, but some more recent Micmac canoes have had a

short guard along the middle third of the length. Often there was no

bevel to take the rib ends on the lower outboard corner of the main

gunwales, and the gunwales were not fitted so that their outboard faces

stood vertically. Instead, the tenons in the gunwales were cut to slant

upward from the inside, so that installation of the thwarts would cause

the outboard face to flare outward at the top. Between this face and

the inside of the bark cover were forced the beveled ends of the ribs,

which were cut chisel-shape. However, some builders beveled or rounded

the lower outboard corner of the main gunwale, as described under

Malecite canoe building (p. 38). The bark cover in the Micmac canoe was

always brought up over the gunwales, gored to prevent unevenness, and

folded down on top of them before being lashed. The gunwale lashing was

a continuous one in which the turns practically touched one another

outboard, though they were sometimes separated under the gunwale to

clear the ribs, which widened near their ends, so the intervals between

them were very small.

 

The other member of the gunwale structure was the cap; its thickness

was usually ¼ to ⅜ inch, reduced slightly toward the ends. Its inboard

face and the bottom were flat, but the top was somewhat rounded, with

the thickness reduced toward the outboard edge. The cap was fastened

to the main gunwales with pegs and with short lashing groups near the

ends, but in late examples nails were used. The ends of the caps were

bevelled off on the inboard side, so that they came together in pointed

form. The cap usually ended near the end of the gunwale but in some

canoes, particularly those that were nail-fastened, the cap was let

into the gunwale (see p. 50) so that the top was flush with end of the

gunwale.

 

[Illustration: Figure 51

 

MICMAC 2-FATHOM PACK, OR WOODS, CANOE with normal sheer and flat

bottom.]

 

The ends of the gunwales were supported by headboards that were bellied

outboard to bring tension vertically on the bark cover. The heel of the

board stood on a short frog, laid on the bottom with the inboard end

touching or slightly lapping over the endmost rib. The frog supported

the heels of the headboard and also the forefoot of the stem-piece,

which otherwise would have but partial support from the sewing battens

outside the ends at these points. The headboard was rather oval-shaped

and the top was notched on each side to fit under the gunwale; the

narrow central tenon stood slightly above the top of the main gunwales

when the headboard was sprung into place and was held in position by a

lashing across the gunwales inboard of the top of the headboard. The

heel was held by the notch in the frog. Cedar shavings were stuffed

into the ends of the canoe between the stem-piece and the headboard

to mold the ends properly, as no ribs could be inserted there. All

woodwork in these canoes was white cedar, except the headboards and

thwarts, which were maple, and the stem battens, which were usually

basket ash but sometimes were split spruce roots.

 

The more recent Micmac canoes usually had no more than five thwarts;

this number was found even on small woods canoes. However, old records

indicate that canoes 20 to 28 feet long on the gunwales were once built

with seven thwarts. The shape of the thwarts varied, apparently in

accordance with the builder's fancy. The most common form was nearly

rectangular in cross-section; in elevation, it was thick at the hull

centerline and tapered smoothly to the outboard ends; and in plan it

was narrowest at the hull centerline and increased in width toward

the ends, the increase being rather sharp at the shoulders of the

tenon. In some, the tenon went through the main gunwales and touched

the inside of the bark cover; in others the ends of the thwarts were

pointed in elevation, square in plan, and were inserted in shallow,

blind tenons on the inboard side of the main gunwales. A single 3-turn

lashing through a hole in the shoulder and around the main gunwale was

used in every case.

 

[Illustration: Figure 51

 

MICMAC 2-FATHOM PACK, OR WOODS, CANOE with normal sheer and flat

bottom.]

 

Sometimes the thwarts just described were straight (in plan view) on

the side toward the middle of the canoe, and only the middle thwart

was alike on both sides. In others the straight side of the end thwart

and of that next inboard were toward the bow and stern of the canoe.

In still others, the middle thwart had a rounded barb form in plan,

with the barb located within 6 or 7 inches of the shoulder and pointed

toward the tenon; the next thwarts out on each side of the middle

thwart were shaped like a cupid's bow but slightly angular and aimed

toward the ends of the canoe, and the end thwarts were of similar plan.

In one known example having such thwarts, there were two very short thwarts at the ends of the canoe, of the usual plain form described earlier, each a few inches inboard of the headboard. Thus this canoe had seven thwarts in the old fashion.