The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 31

The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 31

A FLEET OF 51 BIRCH-BARK CANOES of the Têtes de Boule Indians,

assembled at the Hudson's Bay Company post, Grand Lake Victoria,

Procession Sunday, August 1895. (_Photo, Post-Factor L. A.

Christopherson._)]

 

For construction of the Têtes de Boule canoe, which was marked by good

structural design and neat workmanship, the building bed was slightly

raised at midlength, as was the general practice of the St. Francis

builders. The building frame was usually about 6 inches less in width

amidships, inside to inside, than were the gunwales, and from 15 to 18

inches shorter. The building frame was made quite sharp toward the ends

so that, viewed from above, it rather approached a diamond form; this

produced the very sharp lines that are to be seen in many examples of

the Têtes de Boule canoes. The building frame was of course removed

from the canoe as soon as the gunwales were in place and the bark cover

lashed to them.

 

The gunwale structure, comprised of main gunwale members, caps, and

outwales, was the same as in the Malecite canoes. The main gunwales

were rectangular in cross-section, some being almost square, with the

lower outboard corner bevelled off. Compared to those of eastern canoes

of equal length, the main gunwales were unusually light; their depth

and width rarely exceeded 1 inch, and in very small hunter's canoes

these were often only about ¾ inch. Toward the ends, they tapered to ½

inch, or even slightly less. The ends of the main gunwales, usually of

the common half-arrowhead form, were held together by rawhide or root

thongs passed back and forth through horizontal holes in the members.

After being thus lashed together, they were securely wrapped with

thongs which usually went over gunwales and outwales and through the

bark cover.

 

The gunwale caps, also light, were usually between ¼ and ½ inch thick

and from 1 to 1½ inches wide. At the ends they were tapered in width

and thickness, often to ³⁄₁₆ by ½ inch, so as to follow the quickly

rising sheer there. The ends of the gunwales, caps, and outwales

required hot-water treatment to obtain the required curve of the sheer.

The caps were pegged to the gunwales and were secured at each end with

two or three groups of lashings which passed around the outwales as

well, and through the bark cover.

 

The outwales were likewise light battens between ¼ and ½ inch thick and

from ¾ to 1¼ inches deep, the depth near the ends being tapered to ⅜ to

¾ inch so as to sheer correctly.

 

The bark cover had four or five vertical gores on each side of the

middle thwart, the gore nearest each stem being commonly well inboard

of the end thwarts. The side panels were usually deep amidships and

narrowed toward the ends. A root batten was used under the stitching

of the longitudinal seams of the side panels, which were sewn with a

harness-maker's stitch. The top edge of the bark cover was brought

over the top of the main gunwales, as in the Malecite canoes, and was

secured by group wrappings passing over the gunwales and outwales,

under the caps. These groups were not independent, the root thong being

carried from group to group outside the bark in a long pass under the

outwales. The groups of seven to nine turns were roughly an inch apart

in many small canoes, and perhaps 1½ inches in the large craft. In the

last birch-bark canoes in which no nails or tacks were used, wrappings

of root thongs began with a stop knot, but this does not appear to have

been the earlier practice.

 

[Illustration: Figure 100

 

TÊTES DE BOULE CANOE.]

 

The Têtes de Boule canoes had inside stem-pieces split, according to

the size of the canoe, in four to six laminations and lashed with a

bark or root thong in an open spiral in some canoes but close-wrapped

in others. The stem-piece was as in the Malecite canoes, except that it

ended under the rail cap, and did not pass through it as in the Eastern

canoes; the heel was notched to receive the heel of the headboard.

The bark was usually lashed through the stem, as in the Malecite

construction. However, in some Têtes de Boule canoes, the stem close to

the heel was not laminated and the bark was lashed to the solid part by

an in-and-out stitch passing through closely spaced holes drilled in

the stem piece. Above this, the lashing was the usual spiral which, in

at least a few instances, was passed through the bark just inboard of

the stem piece. Near the top of the stem the lashings sometimes were

rather widely spaced and passed inboard of the stem-pieces; at other

times, however, these lashings were more closely spaced and passed

through the stem.

 

Ordinarily, at the ends of the canoe no _wulegessis_, or covers of

bark, were used under the gunwale caps, although in one example

examined a small cover had been inserted over the gunwale ends and

under the caps, it did not extend below the outwales to form a

_wulegessis_. In some canoes the bark cover was pieced up at the peak

of the stems by a panel whose bottom faired into the bottom of the side

panels.

 

A variety of methods was used to fit the gunwale caps at the ends of

the canoe. Some builders carried the cap out beyond the gunwale ends,

flat, over the edges of the bark cover and the top face of the outwale,

but others tilted the cap outboard and downward. The ends of the caps

came flush with the face of the stems. In an apparently late variation,

the gunwales, instead of ending in the half-arrowhead, were snied off

the inside and a triangular block was inserted between the ends. The

gunwales were then pegged or nailed to the block and the whole secured

with a root wrapping around them, before the outwales were in place.

The first turn began by passing the root through a hole in the block

near its inboard end, with a stop knot in the root.

 

The ends of the gunwales were supported by a narrow headboard sharply

bellied toward the end of the canoe. The top of the headboard was

notched to stand under the main gunwales; the center portion often

was carried high and ended with a cylindrical top that was slightly

swelled like the handle of a gouge or chisel. The heel was sometimes

held in the stem-piece notch with a root lashing.

 

[Illustration: Figure 101

 

TÊTES DE BOULE CANOES.]

 

The thwarts, spaced equal distances apart, were tenoned into the

gunwales as in the old Malecite canoes, and were secured with a peg and

lashing through the two holes in the thwart ends. The middle thwart

was usually formed with a shoulder, viewed in plan, that started 6

or 7 inches inboard of the inside face of the main gunwale. In form,

this thwart usually swelled outward in a straight line from the tenon

shoulder, then reduced in a curved line to about the width of the

tenon tongue and, finally, increased again in a right-angle cut to the

greatest width. From here it was reduced again in a long curve to the

canoe's center line. The other thwarts usually had simple ends, wide

at the tenon shoulder and reduced in a long curve to a narrow center.

In elevation, all the thwarts were thin outboard and thick at the

centerline of the canoe. The cross section of the center thwart at the

centerline was square or nearly so, the first thwart on each side was

rectangular in cross section at the center, and the end thwarts were

similar, but very thin.

 

The sheathing of the Têtes de Boule canoes was thin, particularly at

the ends of the strakes. The bottom was laid with a parallel-sided

center strake going in first. This strake was in two lengths in a small

canoe and three lengths in a large, the butts overlapping slightly. The

rest of the strakes in the bottom were tapered toward the ends of the

canoe. At the extremities of the canoe, the narrow ends of the strakes

were very thin and overlapped along their edges, the bottom sheathing,

when in place, thus following the diamond form of the building frame.

The topside sheathing was laid up in short lengths with overlapping

butts and edges in an irregular plan, those strakes along the bilges

being longer than above. Toward the ends of the canoe these strakes

were slightly tapered and the edges were very thin. The sheathing ended

irregularly, outboard of the headboards, in narrow butts as in most

eastern canoes.

 

[Illustration: Figure 102

 

TÊTES DE BOULE HUNTING CANOE, 1½-FATHOM, with typical construction

details and a paddle.]

 

[Illustration: Figure 103

 

TÊTES DE BOULE CANOE, 2½-FATHOM, with some construction details.]

 

The ribs, like the rest of the structure, were very light, usually ¼

to ⅜ inch thick and from about 1¼ to 1¾ inches wide, depending upon

the size of the canoe. A few examples had ribs 2 inches wide, and

still fewer had ribs up to 2½ inches wide. The spacing was usually

close, somewhat more than an inch edge to edge amidships and a little

more between the end thwarts and the headboards. The spacing amidships

would average perhaps 3¼ inches, center to center. The ends of the

ribs, in the last 2 or 3 inches, were reduced in width very sharply in

a hollow, curved taper to ½ to ¾ inch wide, and were usually beveled

on the inside edge. The thickness was also reduced by a cut on the

inside, so that the ends were chisel-pointed with a short bevel on the

inboard side. The rib ends were forced between the main gunwales and

the bark cover, coming home in the bevel of the lower outboard edge of

the main gunwales between the group lashings of the bark cover as in

the Malecite canoes. The ribs were not prebent but were placed in the

canoe when green, treated with hot water, and then allowed to dry into

place. In preparing the rib, it was first bent over the knee. It was

the custom of some builders to place under the building frame the ribs

that were to go near the ends of the canoe, and to mark the point where

they would be bent. Sometimes the endmost ribs that were to be "broken"

at the centerline to form the ~V~-section were split edgewise. A piece

of the inner lamina was then cut out to one side of the center so that

the inner laminae would lie flat against each other, and to prevent the

inner half from buckling the rib was wrapped with a thong to one side

of the "break."

 

[Illustration: Figure 104

 

TÊTES DE BOULE HUNTING CANOE, 2-FATHOM, with wide bottom, showing

structural details.]

 

It does not appear to have been the common practice of the Têtes de

Boule to decorate their small canoes, though when building for white

men they would decorate if the buyer requested it.