The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 56

The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 56

IROQUOIS ELM-BARK CANOE, after a drawing of 1849, equipped with paddles

for a crew of six, with owners' personal marks on blades. Length

of canoe 25 feet, with capacity for a war party of a dozen or more

men. Note supporting piece of cord tied in with the end battens. Far

gunwales are improperly sketched.]

 

While the ribs were customarily tree branches or small saplings, in

some canoes the saplings were split and bent so their flat face was

against the bark. In the East, hunters' canoes were often given the

lath-like ribs of the birch-bark canoes, for when steel tools became

available such ribs were easily made during the winter for use in the

spring, when the temporary canoe would be needed.

 

According to the early reports, the ribs were placed some 6 to 10

inches apart in the bark cover, with the heads forced under the inwales

against the bark, and were supported there by the outwales as well. No

mention is made of any sheathing; Kalm refers to a piece of bark and

some saplings or tree branches laid over the ribs to protect the bottom

inboard. In the large Iroquois canoes it would have been possible and

practical to employ a piece of bark inside the main bark cover, as

noted on page 213; this inside piece needed to be only long enough to

reach to the end thwarts, or abreast the crimps, and wide enough to

cover the bottom and bilges up to 3 or 4 inches short of the inwales.

With the ribs over this inner sheet, a stiff bottom would result. In a

long canoe, split poles could be laid lengthwise inside the bottom of

the canoe and fastened there by lashing them to a few ribs; these would

serve to protect the bottom in loading and to stiffen the bark cover.

However, in a small canoe the stiffness of elm bark when the rough

outside layer was not fully scraped off would make sheathing of any

kind unnecessary, and the bark mat inside the ribs, mentioned by Kalm,

would be sufficient.

 

The difficulty in reconstructing the building methods of the large

Iroquois canoes on the same basis is that Kalm's description is of a

rather small canoe; the information on the temporary canoes of the

eastern Indians also deals with short craft. It is evident, however,

that poles were not usually placed between the bark and the ribs, as

in temporary skin canoes built by Indians. It is also apparent that

splints were not used by the Iroquois for sheathing large canoes.

 

The ends of the outwales in the Iroquois canoes seem to have been

secured by snying them off on the outside face and holding these thin

ends by the cord around the ends, as well as by the closure battens

of the stems. In some eastern canoes, notably the elm-bark canoes of

the St. Francis, the outwale ends projected slightly outboard of the

stems and were lashed across them by a simple athwartship lashing which

passed through the bark cover and under and over the lashing at the

inwale ends.

 

In a drawing of an Iroquois canoe made about 1849, the cord around the

stems is shown together with the outside stem battens and lashing; the

ends of the outwales are apparently under the cord and perhaps under

the stem battens. The stem batten is in one piece sharply bent under

the stems in ~U~-form. The end lashing shown seems to be in groups and

the bottom, for a little distance inboard of the stems, is also shown

as lashed. Three thwarts are shown. It may be that this drawing was

made not from a full-size canoe but from a model, for the proportions

are obviously incorrect. This possibility casts some doubt on the

picture as evidence of the building practices, for in Indian-built

models simplified construction details not used in actual canoe

building are often found.

 

According to early accounts and the statements of eastern Indians,

these emergency canoes were often heavy and unsuitable for portaging.

By 1750, at least, the Iroquois were using blanket square-sails in

their elm-bark canoes.

 

 

_Skin Boats_

 

Among the other forms of temporary or emergency canoes used by North

American Indians, the most widespread was some form of skin boat.

These would not require description here were it not for the fact

that the Indian skin boats were usually built by bark-canoe methods

of construction rather than by methods such as used by the Eskimo. To

build their skin boats--kayaks and umiaks--the Eskimo first constructed

a complete framework, and this was then covered with skins sewn to fit.

This process of building required a rigid framework capable of not only

standing without a skin covering but also of giving both longitudinal

and transverse strength sufficient to withstand loading, without the

slightest support from the skin covering. Hence, the framework of

the Eskimo craft was made with the members rigidly lashed and pegged

together. The majority of Indian skin canoes, however, required the

covering to hold the framework together, as in a birch-bark canoe.

An example is the Malecite skin-covered hunters' canoe. According to

available information, the Malecite hunter would leave two or three

moose skins on stretchers for use in building a skin canoe in the early

spring. Sometimes the hair was removed from the hides and sometimes it

was not. Spare time during the winter hunt might be spent in preparing

the wooden framework, but if this were not done the delay would not be

very great.

 

The gunwale frame was first made of four small sapling poles roughly

scarfed at the butts. From a small sapling a middle thwart was made

in the manner of the elm-bark canoe thwarts, the ends tapered enough

to allow them to be wrapped around the gunwales and secured under

the thwart by lashings. The ends of the gunwales were merely crossed

and lashed. Where end thwarts would be placed, it was usual to use a

cross tie made of twisted rawhide or cords of bark fiber. Holes were

then drilled at intervals in the underside of the gunwale to take the

heads of the ribs. Stem-pieces about 3 feet long were prepared of

short saplings and bent to the desired profile; one builder used a

full-length keel-piece, instead of the short stem-pieces. The ribs were

usually of small saplings that could be bent green without the use of

hot water. For sheathing a number of small saplings were also gathered,

and from them were made poles in lengths about equal to three-quarters,

or a little more, of the intended length of the canoe, which would be

determined by the size of the skins available. The average canoe was

about 12½ feet long, roughly 40 inches beam, and 14 to 19 inches in

depth.

 

The skins were sewn together lengthwise, lapped about 6 inches or a

little less, and secured by a double row of stitching. If the hair had

not been removed, it had to be scraped away along the sewn edges. In

such a case the hair would usually be on the outside of the finished

canoe. Also, before work was started on assembling a canoe, the skins

were worked pliable, and tallow and gum were accumulated.

 

When an emergency canoe was ready to be assembled a smooth place was

prepared; either an open bit of ground or the floor of the hunter's

hut, if large enough, might be used. The outlines of the gunwales were

fixed by a few stakes temporarily driven around it and then pulled

up. The skins were then laid on the bed and the gunwale frame placed

on them and weighted with stones. Then the skins were left to dry for

awhile until they became somewhat stiff; the proper condition was

indicated by the curling of the edges.

 

When the skin was sufficiently stiff, the gunwale frame was lifted and

temporarily secured to the stakes redriven in the bed, the sides of the

skin were turned up, the skin was gored, and sometimes the ends of the

gunwales were sheered up slightly at the end stakes; this latter was

not always done, for in some canoes the sheer was quite flat.

 

The skins were now trimmed to the sheer of the gunwales and the edges

lashed to these members with rawhide, the gores also having been

sewn. Next the stem-pieces were put into place and the stem heads

lashed inside the apex formed by the ends of the gunwales. Some ribs

were then bent and forced down on the stiff skin cover, the rib ends

being worked into the holes prepared for them on the underside of the

gunwales. These ribs usually stood approximately square to the curve,

or rocker, of the bottom. Now the skin could be trimmed to the stem

profiles and sewn. The stitching was usually done so as to be outside

the stem-pieces, with an occasional turn going around inside them to

help hold the structure in place. Some builders first put in the stems

temporarily and then trimmed the skins to match; after this was done

the stem-pieces were removed to allow easy sewing. When they were

replaced and secured permanently, a few more stitches were added along

the stems to secure the woodwork.

 

The next step was to sheath the canoe inside with the small poles;

these were placed a few inches apart transversely and their ends worked

under the most inboard of the ribs on the stem-pieces, then held in

place, while the necessary adjustments were made, by a few temporary

ribs. Then the ribs were forced into place, one by one, each prebent to

the desired section, just as in birch-bark canoe construction. In this

final shaping, the skin cover might have to be wetted again to soften

the material and to allow stretching. The seams were then payed with

gum or tallow, and the canoe was ready for launching.

 

The description is for canoes of minimum finish; builders often used

split and shaped gunwales, split ribs, and splint sheathing if these

could be prepared during the winter. The construction of a skin canoe

was not a specialized process in which a hunter consistently built

this one type; the selection was determined by natural conditions.

If he were to come out of the woods too early in the spring to make

the construction of a spruce-bark canoe easy, then he would resort to

skin construction; the statements of old Malecite hunters leads to the

conclusion that as emergency craft they used spruce-bark canoes most

often.

 

Perhaps the most primitive of the skin boats built by the North

American Indian was the so-called bull-boat of the Plains Indians.

These were not canoes but coracles--bowl-shaped and suitable only for

use on streams, where ferrying would be the main requirement. The boats

were covered with buffalo-hides and their framework was usually made of

the willow shoots found along the streams. The framework followed, to

some extent at least, the basketwork principle, a circular gunwale or

rim being used. The ribs were set in two groups, half at right angles

to the other half in very irregular fashion. This construction formed

a sort of rough grating in the bottom. The ribs were lashed together

with rawhide and apparently the craft was built up on the skin as were

the Malecite skin canoes. Battens in circular form were used on the

sides to fair the cover. The form of the bull-boat varied somewhat

among individual builders; sometimes it assumed almost a dish shape

with shallow flaring sides, but more commonly the sides were nearly

upright; the bottom was always flat, or nearly so. These bull-boats

appear always to have been small. Judging by the examples preserved,

a bull-boat 5 feet over the rim or gunwale, or made of more than one

skin, was extremely rare, and most examples are nearer 4 feet and

built on a single skin. Many were too small to carry a person; these

were intended to be loaded with cargo to be kept dry and towed by a

swimmer. When they were large enough to be paddled, the paddler worked

over the "bow," as in a coracle. Probably all the Plains Indians living

near streams once used the bull-boat, but existing records show only

the Mandan, Omaha, Kansas, Hidatsa, and Assiniboin to have used it.

The Blackfoot (Siksika) and Dakota are said to have used some kind of

a skin boat in which their tepee poles were employed as a temporary

frame, but nothing is recorded of their form.

 

The use of spruce bark as a building material in the Northwest and

throughout the extreme northern range of the birch-bark canoe has been

discussed in earlier chapters (pp. 155 to 158). In these areas, the

emergency canoe was usually built of caribou skin. On the Alaskan coast

seal skin may also have been used, but generally it was used for the

permanent kayak-type canoe and not for a hastily built temporary craft.

The caribou-skin canoe was also built as a permanent type, in either

kayak form or somewhat on the model of the spruce-or birch-bark canoe

of the area. However, although references to temporary craft covered

with caribou skin exist in early accounts of the fur trade, there is

no record of their form or details of their construction. Early in the

present century some of the Indians of the Mackenzie River country

built skin canoes much like the modern canvas-covered freight canoes.

Also, some of these skin canoes were built so that they resembled York

boats or the whaleboats of the white man. No observer has described the

methods used to construct the emergency canoe of the Northwest; we do

not know whether they resemble those used in the Indian bark canoe or in the Eskimo skin boat.