The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 35

The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 35

The long-nose Ojibway canoe is surprisingly primitive by comparison

with the graceful and well-finished high-ended model built after the

Algonkin style. Adney believed that the long-nose type originated

with the Sioux Dakotas, before the combined Ojibway and Cree movement

forced them out of the forest lands to the west of Lake Superior. He

considered it possible that both the Ojibway and Cree adapted the

Dakota model, modifying it somewhat to their methods of construction.

It is true that the western Cree built a long-nose canoe, but it had

less chin than the Ojibway model. On the other hand, the Ojibway

prebent ribs in pairs like the eastern Cree, and used spreaders in the

end ribs while drying them, in exactly the same manner. A picture taken

in 1916 shows the gunwales of a Cree long-nose canoe being set; it was

laid on the ground and weighted along the midlength by stones laid on

boards placed across the longitudinals. The ends had been sheered up

and were supported at each end by a thong made fast to the gunwale end

and then brought over a post, or strut, a few feet inboard and made

fast to the middle thwart.

 

It is unnecessary to detail the construction of the Ojibway canoes, as

they employed a building-frame, as the drawings on pages 123 to 127

show plainly enough the pertinent details of fitting and construction.

It is important to observe that the wide variation in model and in

construction details of the Ojibway canoes produced a variety of

building procedures that in the main were like those of the Algonkin

and Cree. Hence the older tribal method of construction cannot now be

stated with any accuracy.

 

The paddle forms used by the Ojibway groups varied somewhat. Most were

made with parallel-sided blades and oval tips. The hand grip at the top

of the handle was rectangular and was large in comparison to the grip

of the eastern Cree paddles. A few variations have been noticed; the

blade of one was widest at the top, the tip was almost squared off, and

the upper hand grip was much as in the factory paddle of today. This

paddle, from an unknown locality, was used in 1849.

 

As in the case of the Algonkin, the eastern Ojibway built fur-trade

canoes under supervision. Though these canoes differed somewhat from

those built by the Algonkins, it is now impossible to say whether

or not there was any real relationship between them and the small,

high-ended "old-form" canoe. Likewise, the Ojibway built a version

of the _wabinaki chiman_ which seems to have influenced some types

of their own, such as, for instance, the straight-stem Lake Temagami

canoe.

 

[Illustration: Figure 123

 

NINETEEN-FOOT OJIBWAY CANOE with thirteen Indians aboard (1913).]

 

 

_Western Cree_

 

The western portion of the great Cree tribe appear to have occupied the

western shore of James Bay and to have moved gradually northwestward

in historical times. Their territory included the northern portion of

Ontario and northern Manitoba north of Lake Winnipeg, and as early

as 1800 they had entered northwestern Alberta. The line of division

between the canoes of the eastern and western Cree cannot be strictly

determined, but it is roughly the Missinaibi River, which, with the

Abitibi River, empties into the head of James Bay at the old post of

Moose Factory. The southern range of the Cree model was only a little

way south of the head of James Bay, irregularly westward in line

with Lake St. Joseph to Lake Winnipeg. To the west, the Cree type of

canoe gradually spread until it met the canoe forms of the Athabascan

in the Northwest Territories, in the vicinity of Lake Athabaska in

northwestern Saskatchewan.

 

The canoes of the western Cree, as has been noted, strongly resembled

the long-nose Ojibway model except that they had less pronounced chin.

But unlike those of the eastern Cree, their canoes employed an inside

stem-piece that was sometimes a laminated piece and sometimes a piece

of spruce root. The stem head was commonly bent sharply and secured

between the gunwale ends at the point where the two longitudinals were

fastened together, much as in some Ojibway long-nose canoes. The Cree

canoe had basically the same dish-shaped midsection, but it had very

full, round bilges and the flare was so curved in the topside that it

was even less apparent than in the Ojibway model. The shorter chin of

the Cree canoe also made tumble-home in the end sections unnecessary,

and cross section near the headboards was given the form of a slightly

rounded ~U~.

 

The bottom had very little rocker at the ends, being straight for

practically the whole length. The stem-piece if laminated (often in

only two or three laminations) came up from the bottom in a fair round

forefoot and then tumbled in by a gentle curve to the stem-head, where

it was bent sharply to pass down between the gunwale ends as previously

noted. But if the stem-piece was of spruce root, the profile was often

somewhat irregular and the chin was more pronounced. In a common style

the stem came fair out of the bottom in a quick hard curve, then curved

outward slightly until the height of the least freeboard amidships

was reached, at which height another hard turn began the tumble-home

in a gentle sweep to the stem-head, where there was a very hard turn

downward. The stem-head was often split, as in some Ojibway canoes,

so that it came over the joined ends of the main gunwales and the two

halves were then lashed to the inside faces of the gunwales.

 

Birch bark was often poor or scarce in the territory of the western

Cree, as in that of their eastern brothers. As a substitute, they

employed spruce bark and in general seem to have achieved better

results, for their spruce-bark canoes had a neater appearance. If the

canoe was built when or where root material was difficult to obtain,

the western Cree used rawhide for sewing the bark cover. When the stems

were lashed with rawhide, a stem-band of bark under the lashing was

common.

 

The gunwales were round in cross section and were often spliced

amidships. The bark cover was lashed to these with a continuous

lashing, no caps or outwales being employed. As in the Ojibway

long-nose canoe, the headboards were very narrow and much bellied.

These canoes were built with four or five thwarts; the 4-thwart type

was used for gathering wild rice, as was the Ojibway type, while the

5-thwart canoe was the portage model. The thwarts were sometimes

mortised into the gunwales, but some builders made the thwart ends

chisel-pointed and drove them into short splits in the gunwales before

lashing them, one or two holes being drilled in the thwart ends to take

the lashing thongs. When the thwarts were tenoned into the gunwales,

the builders of course made the inside of the gunwales flat.

 

When spruce bark was employed, its greater stiffness made it possible

to space the ribs as much as 10 inches on centers, but with birch

the spacing was about 1 inch, edge to edge. The sheathing was in

short splints and the inside of the canoe was "shingled" or covered

irregularly without regard to lining off the strakes, a practice

sometimes observed in Ojibway long-nose canoes. The much-bellied and

narrow headboards were fitted as in the long-nose canoe, and the heel

was secured under a piece of sheathing and held by it and the first two

ribs.

 

Western Cree canoes were built with a building frame, and the bed was

raised in the middle. The sewing varied. The ends were lashed with

combinations of close-wrapped turns, crossed turns, grouped, and spiral

turns; the lashing commonly went around the inside stem piece rather

than through it. Side panels were sewn with in-and-out stitches or

back stitches, and the gores with the usual spiral. Gumming as a rule

was done with clear spruce gum tempered by repeated meltings.

 

[Illustration: Figure 124

 

WESTERN CREE 2½-FATHOM CANOE, Winisk River District, northwest of James

Bay. Built of either birch or spruce bark. Inside root stem piece,

round gunwales, and much-bellied headboard are typical.]

 

The woodwork varied with the building site; some builders could use

much cedar, but spruce was most common and the thwarts were usually

of birch. When spruce bark was used it was never employed in a single

large sheet, since it would have been impossible to mold it to the

required shape. Hence the bark cover was pieced up, whether birch or

spruce, as an aid in molding the form. Before the spruce bark was

sewed and gummed, the edges of the pieces had to be thinned to make a

neat joint. Furthermore, in the continuous lashing it was desirable to

take two or three turns through one hole in the bark cover to avoid

weakening the material with closely spaced holes.

 

The western Cree paddles had parallel-sided blades with rounded tips;

the handle sometimes had a ball-shaped top grip and sometimes it was

pole-ended. The blade did not have a ridge on its face near the handle.

Old Cree paddles were often decorated with red pigment bands, markings

in the shape of crosses, squares in series, and dots on the blades; the

top grip might also be painted.

 

Many tribal groups in the western portion of the area have been

mentioned--Teton, Sioux, Assiniboine, Illinois, Huron, and many

others--but no record of their canoe forms has survived and the

assigning of any model to them is pure speculation. The fur trade alone

brought about a period of tribal movement among the Indians long enough

to erase many tribal distinctions in canoes and to cause types to move

great distances.

 

[Illustration: Figure 125

 

AN OLD 6-FATHOM FUR-TRADE CANOE, or "rabeska," used on the

Montreal-Great Lakes run. Also called the Iroquois canoe, it

approximates the canoes built for the French, at the Trois Rivières,

Que., factory and is of the style used by the North West and Hudson's

Bay Companies.]

 

 

_Fur-Trade Canoes_

 

Of all birch-bark canoe forms, the most famous were the _canots du

maître_, or _maître canots_ (also called north canoes, great canoes, or

_rabeskas_), of the great fur companies of Canada. These large canoes

were developed early, as we have seen in the French colonial records,

and remained a vital part of the fur trade until well toward the very

end of the 19th century--two hundred years of use and development at

the very least. A comprehensive history of the Canadian and American

fur trade is yet to be written; when one appears it will show that the

fur trade could not have existed on a large scale without the great

_maître canot_ of birch bark. It will also have to show that the early

exploration of the north country was largely made possible by this

carrier. In fact, the great canoes of the Canadian fur trade must be