The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 39

The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 39

Struts were not required with this construction, described earlier (on

p. 123) as the Ojibway method. In bending the stem-piece, the reverse

curve around the stem-head was formed over a short strut that was

removed when the stem-piece was dried and set to shape. As a variety

of forms were used in shaping these stem-pieces, it was the ingenuity

of the builder that decided just how the end of the stem-piece was

best secured and how the whole was to be braced. These details will be

better understood by reference to the plans and illustrations on pages

134 to 151.

 

The headboards were not sprung or bellied, but stood nearly vertical

in the canoes. The inboard face was often decorated; in the old French

canoes and in those of the North West Company, the board was carved or

painted to represent a human figure, _le petit homme_, which was often

made in the likeness of a voyageur in his best clothes. In some canoes,

only a human head was used, or the top of the headboard, or "button,"

was decorated with a rayed compass drawn in colors.

 

The thwarts were usually rather heavy amidships and were made in

various forms to suit the taste of the builder. They were commonly of

maple, but Christopherson's canoes had spruce or tamarack thwarts,

the latter being his preference. These thwarts were not intended to

be used as seats, though the sternman, or steersman, often sat on the

aftermost one. The paddlers often used seats in the large canoes; these

were planks slung from each end by cords made fast to the gunwales.

These cords allowed the height of the seats to be adjusted; the

paddlers usually knelt on the bottom of the canoe with hips supported

by the seat. The seats were usually slung before the thwarts, except

amidships, where the space was taken up by passengers or cargo.

 

The factors often took great pride in the appearance of the canoes from

their posts and many, like Christopherson, had the craft gaily painted

in a rather barbaric fashion. Christopherson's canoes did not use any

of the circular decoration forms; his canoes usually had painted on

them, he recalled, such names as _Duchess_, _Sir John A. MacDonald_,

_Express_, _Arrow_, and _Ivanhoe_. The ends were often painted white,

with the figures or letters on this background. The Company flag was

often painted on the stern with the initials of the Company, H.B.C.,

said to mean "Here Before Christ" by disrespectful clerks. Many posts

used such figures as the jackfish, loon, deer, wolf, or bear, on the

bow. The rayed circular devices appear to have been long popular and

were said to have been introduced by the French. There is no record

of any device being officially required in any district but the

_cassettes_ of certain districts were marked with distinctive devices

at one time; Norway House used a deer's head with antlers, Saskatchewan

two buffalo, Cumberland a bear, Red River a grasshopper, and Manitoba a

crocus.

 

[Illustration: Figure 141

 

FUR-TRADE CANOE STEM-PIECES, models made by Adney: 1, Têtes de Boule

type; 2, Ojibway form; 3, old Algonkin form.]

 

During Christopherson's long service he knew the canoes built in

his vicinity at such nearby building posts as Lake Abitibi, Lake

Waswanipi, and Kipewa, in western Quebec; and Lake Timagami (Bear

Island), Matachewan on Montreal River, Matagama (west of Sudbury), and

Missinaibi, in nearby Ontario. These were but a few of the building

posts, of course, for canoes were built at numerous posts to the west

and northward.

 

When portaged, the large canoes might be carried right side up or

upside down, the former being more usual method. The _canot du nord_

was often light enough to be carried by two paddlers, one under each

end, with the canoe right side up and steadied by a cord tied to the

offside gunwale and held in the carrier's hand. The _maître canot_

required four men to carry it. Various methods were used. One was to

lash carrying sticks across the gunwales near the ends and to carry

the canoe right side up with a man on the end of each stick. Another

way was for the men to distribute themselves along the bottom of

the canoe, near the ends, and to use steadying cords. Or the canoe

might be carried upside down with the men carrying it by placing one

shoulder under the gunwales at convenient places. When a bad place

in the portage was reached, the whole crew might have to turn to. The

method of portaging had to meet the physical limitation of the portage

path and the matter was not so much one of standard procedure as of

improvisation of the moment.

 

[Illustration: Figure 142

 

PORTAGING A 4½-FATHOM FUR-TRADE CANOE, ABOUT 1902, near the head of the

Ottawa River. Shows an unusually large number of carriers; four would

be the normal number. (_Canadian Pacific Railway Company photo._)]

 

The voyageur was particular about his paddle; no man in his right mind

would use a blade wider than between 4½ and 5 inches, for anything

wider would exhaust him in a short distance. The paddle reached to

about the users' chin, when he stood with the tip of the paddle on the

ground in front of him. Longer paddles, about 6 feet long, were used by

the bow and stern men, the two most skillful voyageurs in the canoe and

the highest paid. These men had, also, spare paddles whose total length

was 8 feet or more; these were used in running rapids only. The paddles

were of hardwood, white or yellow birch or maple, as hardwood paddles

could be made thin in the blade and small in the handle without loss of

strength, whereas softwood paddles could not. The blades were sometimes

painted white, the tips in some color such as red, blue, green or

black, but other color combinations were often used.

 

In Christopherson's service, sail was rarely used, as the canoemen

were unskilled in handling it and loss had resulted. In early times,

however, it appears to have been much used on the Great Lakes routes

by the French and the North West Company. A single square-sail was the

only rig employed; the canoes could not be worked to windward under

fore-and-aft sails.

 

During the great seasonal movements the trade canoes moved in fleets

called brigades, the usual brigade in early times being three or four

canoes, but later, when the needs of the individual posts had grown,

the brigade could be of any necessary number of canoes to carry in the

required supplies and goods or to bring out the season's catch of furs.

The leader of the brigade was the _conducteur_ or _guide_; sometimes

he was the post's factor. In French times the _maître canot_ would be

loaded with 60 pieces, or packs, to the total of about 3 short tons

and half a ton of provisions, and eight men, each with an allowance

of 40 pounds for gear, so that the whole weight in the canoe would

be something over 4 short tons. An example of such a canoe measured,

inside the gunwales, 5½ fathoms long and 4½ feet beam. The usual

brigade of four of these canoes would thus carry roughly 12 short tons

of goods.

 

The Company would send one brigade after another, at close intervals of

time, until the whole seasonal movement was in progress. Those brigades

going the greatest distance were started first. Although cargoes left

the coast from early spring on to late summer, the great canoe movement

took place towards the fall. Canoe travel north and northwestward

from the Great Lakes had to be carefully timed, as goods had to be

accumulated at the base posts on the Lakes and the brigades placed in

movement at the last safe date which would permit them to reach their

destination before the first hard freeze-up. The base posts were those

where the run of the _maître canot_ ended and that of the _canot du

nord_ began, the places where reloading for the individual trading

posts in the Northland was necessary. The late start was usually

desirable in order to await the arrival at the base posts of all the

goods required, for movements of freight were uncertain before the days

of railroads and steamers.

 

[Illustration: Figure 143

 

DECORATIONS: FUR-TRADE CANOES. (_Watercolor sketch by Adney._)]

 

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, before the whole canoe trade

fell under the control of the Hudson's Bay Company, it was the custom

to distribute 8 gallons of rum to each canoe for consumption during

the run, and it was also the custom for all hands to see how much of

this they could drink before starting out. This grandiose undertaking

usually began as soon as the local priest, who gave his blessing to the

canoemen, had left the scene. The magnificent drunk lasted one day and

the next morning the crew had to be underway. The first day's run, old

accounts repeatedly show, not only was short but was often beset by

difficulties.

 

The era of the bark trading canoe did not close with a dramatic

change. Its ending was a long, slow process. By the last decade of

the 19th century the bark trading canoe had disappeared from most of

the old routes, and even in the Northwest it had been almost wholly

displaced by York boats, scows, bateaux, and canvas or wooden canoes

of white-man construction. By the beginning of the first World War,

the _maître canots_ and _canots du nord_ were finished, except as

curiosities--hardly even as these, for not one was preserved in a

museum.

 

Indeed, so complete was the disappearance of the fur-trade canoe that

any attempt to record its design, construction, and fitting would have

been almost hopeless, had it not been for the notes, sketches, and

statements of such men as L. A. Christopherson, aided by a few models

and pictures, and for the memories of a few Indian builders who had worked on the canoes.