The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 23

The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 23

The old form of small hunting canoe is represented by but one poor

model (see p. 72) in which the ends are lower and with much less rake

than those of the river type. From this very scant evidence, it seems

probable that the small woods canoes were patterned on the river canoe

in all respects but the profile of the ends.

 

[Illustration: Figure 62

 

MALECITE 2½-FATHOM RIVER CANOE, 19TH CENTURY. Old form with raking ends

and much sheer.]

 

From the early English and French accounts, it is evident that none of

the maritime Indians used very large or long war canoes, capable of

holding many men. The old war canoes of the Malecite appear to have

been either of the coastal or river types as the circumstances of their

place of building and use dictated. The slight information available in

these accounts suggests that the war canoe did not differ in appearance

from the other types of Malecite canoes, and that they were not of

greater size. The Malecite appear to have followed the same practices

as the Micmac, using for war purposes canoes of standard size and

appearance but narrower and built for speed, since a war party sought

to travel rapidly to and from its objective in order to surprise the

enemy and escape before organized pursuit could be formed. The Malecite

placed four warriors in each canoe, two to paddle and two to watch and

use weapons while afloat. However, only on rare occasions were bows

and arrows used from canoes afloat; most fighting was done on land.

Each canoe carried the personal mark of each of the four warriors,

apparently one mark on each flap, or _wulegessis_, under the gunwales

near the ends. When a war leader was carried however, only his mark

was on his canoe. After a successful raid, the Malecite used to race

for the last mile or so of the return journey, and the winning canoe

was given, as a distinction, some mark or picture, often something

humorous such as a caricature of an animal. This practice, however, was

not confined to war canoes; in rather recent times it has been noted

that such pictures were placed on any canoe that had shown outstanding

qualities in racing competition or in exhibitions of skill.

 

When making long canoe trips, the Malecite followed the widespread

Indian practice of using the canoe as a shelter at night. When a

camping place was reached, the canoe was unloaded, carried ashore, and

turned upside down so that the tops of the ends and one gunwale rested

on the ground. If the ends were high enough, as in the old Malecite

type, one gunwale was raised off the ground far enough to permit a

man to crawl under. If, as in the Micmac canoes, the ends were too

low to allow this, they were raised off the ground by short forked

sticks, with the forks resting against the end thwarts and the upper

gunwale and the heels stuck into the earth. The dunnage (provisions

or other cargo) was then stowed on the ground under the ends of the

canoe and the two men would sleep under a single blanket with their

feet pointed in opposite directions, each with his head on a pile of

dunnage. If there were too many men aboard to do this, in bad weather a

crude shelter was made by resting some poles on the upturned bilge and

covering them with sheets of bark; under such a shelter meals could be

cooked.

 

[Illustration: Figure 63

 

OLD FORM OF MALECITE-ABNAKI 2½--FATHOM OCEAN CANOE of the Penobscots.

In the Peabody Museum, Salem, Mass.]

 

As did many of the eastern Indians, the old Malecite tribesmen built

canoes of materials other than birch bark. When a canoe was required

for a temporary use such as in hunting, it could be made of spruce

bark. (As the designs of such canoes were rather standardized, they

will be dealt with in Chapter 8.) When bark was unobtainable, the

Malecite built canoes covered with moosehide, or, in rare instances,

they built wooden dugouts.

 

The old Malecite river canoe shown on page 71 will serve to illustrate

a description of the details of construction that were used. These

canoes were obviously built with their gunwales (which were the length

of the bottom only) serving as a building frame. The ends of the

gunwales were supported by headboards stepped on the heels of the inner

stem-pieces, and the stems raked outward from their heels. The gunwale

ends were joined to the head of the stem-piece by the outwales and the

gunwale caps. Bark was used to the ends of the canoe. One side of the

bark cover was cut so that it stood well above the sheer line from the

gunwale end outboard, and the opposite side was cut to the level of the

sheer. The first piece was then folded over the opposite side and down,

so that it covered both the extreme ends of the gunwales and the top of

the inner stem-piece. Another piece of bark was then fitted over this

fold, and this new piece formed the flaps below the outwales on each

side, the _wulegessis_. The outwales ran past the gunwale ends and were

cut off flush with the outboard face of the stem; the caps ran likewise

and covered the bark over the head of the inner stem piece. The

characteristic sheer of these canoes, where the rise toward the ends

began, showed a quick curve that faired into a rising straight line at

the gunwale and then continued straight and rising to the stem head.

The _wulegessis_ was therefore quite long. The ends of the gunwales

were not of the half-arrowhead shape, but were snied off on their

inboard sides so that they met on a rather long bevel; the lashing was

slightly let in to the outboard faces to keep it from slipping over the

gunwale ends. The caps of the gunwales were similarly reduced in width,

where they came together over the ends of the canoe.

 

[Illustration: Figure 64

 

LARGE 3-FATHOM OCEAN CANOE OF THE PASSAMAQUODDY porpoise hunters. These

canoes were sometimes fitted to sail or outrigged for rowing. The last

of this type had much lower ends.]

 

The main gunwale members were about 1¼ inches square amidships,

tapering to ¾ inch at the ends. The lower outboard corner was beveled

to take the ends of the ribs, as shown on page 71, and the lower

inboard corner was also beveled or rounded, but to a lesser degree.

The upper inboard corner, shown beveled in the drawing of figure 62,

was sometimes slightly rounded, as were the outwales. Amidships the

outwale was about 1 inch deep, and it tapered toward the ends, where

its depth was about ⅝ inch, the thickness being ½ inch amidships and a

scant ⅜ inch at the ends. On the canoe shown, the cap was ⅜ inch thick,

tapering to about ⁵⁄₁₆ inch at the ends, and 1¾ inches wide amidships,

tapering to about ⅝ or ½ inch where the caps came together at the ends.

The top corners of the cap were beveled in the example.

 

The sheathing appears to have been about ³⁄₁₆ inch thick on the

average. On the bottom and sides it was in two lengths, overlapping

slightly amidships. Toward the ends of the canoe the sheathing was

tapered, maximum width of the splints being about 4 inches amidships.

 

The canoe, which was 18 feet 6 inches long overall, had 46 ribs. These

were about 3 inches wide and ⅜ inch thick from the center to the first

thwart outboard on each side, and 2 inches wide from these thwarts

to the ends, except for the endmost five ribs, which were roughly 1¾

inches wide. The drawing on page 71 shows the shape of the thwarts. The

ends were tenoned through the gunwales, and there were three lacing

holes in the ends of the middle and first thwarts and two in the end

thwarts. The beam of the canoe inside the gunwales was 30 inches and

outside, 31¼ inches; the tumble-home made the extreme beam 35½ inches.

The canoe was rather flat bottomed athwartships and quite shallow, the

depth amidships being 10¾ inches.

 

The building bed must have had about a 1½ inch crown at midlength. It

is probable that the stem pieces were not fixed in place until after

the gunwales had been raised to sheer height. The gunwales were lashed

with the Malecite group lashings, each of four turns through the bark

and spaced at 3 to 3½ inches apart in the midlength and at 2 inches

from the end thwarts to the headboards. Two auxiliary lashings were

placed over the outwales and caps outboard of the gunwale ends, one

about 6 inches beyond the ends of the gunwales and the other against

the inboard side of the stem-piece. The end closure was accomplished by

the usual spiral lashing passed through the laminated stem pieces. The

latter were split (to within about 4 inches of the heel), into six or

more laminae that were closely wrapped with bark cord. The headboards

were bellied toward the ends to keep the bark cover under tension, and

the ends outboard of the headboards were stuffed with shavings or moss.

 

[Illustration: Figure 65

 

OLD FORM OF PASSAMAQUODDY 2½-FATHOM OCEAN CANOE with characteristic

bottom rocker and sheer. This rather small, fast canoe for coastal

hunting and fishing was common in the 19th century.]

 

A canoe from the Penobscot River, obtained in 1826 by the Peabody

Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, and described in _The American Neptune_

for October 1948, shows that the Penobscot built their canoes on the

old Malecite model. The canoe is apparently a coastal type. It has some

round in the bottom amidships and ~V~-sections toward the ends; it is

18 feet 7 inches long overall, 37¼ inches maximum beam, 15¼ inches deep

amidships, and the ends stand 26 to 28 inches above the base line, the

bow being slightly higher and with more rake than the stern. The rocker

takes place within 4 feet of the ends, with the bottom straight for

about 8 feet along the midlength. The bilges amidship are slack, and

the reverse curve to form the tumble-home starts within 6 inches of the

gunwales (see drawing, p. 72.)

 

A much later coastal canoe of the Passamaquoddy, a porpoise-and

seal-hunting canoe built in 1873, will also serve to show the old type

(see p. 73). This style of canoe was usually built in lengths ranging

from 18 to 20 feet overall, the maximum beam was between 25 and 44

inches, and the beam inside the gunwales was between 29½ and 36 inches.

The depth amidships ranged from about 18 to 21 inches, and the height

of the ends above the base was from 28 or 30 inches to as much as 45

inches. The ribs numbered from 42 to 48 and were 3 inches wide and ½

inch thick. The sheathing was from ¼ to ⅜ inch thick and the rocker

of the bottom, from 4 to 6 inches, took place within the last 4 or 5

feet of the ends. The midsection showed a well-rounded bottom, a slack

bilge, and the high reverse to form the tumble-home seen in the old

Penobscot canoe at Salem. These canoes were still being built well

into the 1880's, if not later, and are to be seen in some old U.S.

Fish Commission photographs of porpoise and seal hunting at Eastport,

Maine. Seal-and porpoise-hunting canoes carried a sail, usually the

spritsail of the dory. While this model probably was little changed in

construction from early times, the surviving examples and models are

of the period when nails were employed. The drawing on page 74 is of a

small coastal hunting canoe of the same class, built in 1875.

 

[Illustration: Figure 66

 

MALECITE RACING CANOE OF 1888, showing ~V~-shaped keel piece placed

between sheathing and bark to form deadrise.]

 

The reasons for the gradual decline in the building of canoes of the

old style are not known, and the transition from the high-peaked ends

to the more modern low and rounded ends was not sudden. It apparently

began in some inland areas, particularly on the St. Lawrence and the

St. John Rivers, at least as early as 1849, and the new trend in

appearance finally reached the coast about 25 years later. In the

period of transition, the high-peaked model developed toward the St.

Francis type, or that of the modern "Indian" canvas canoe, as well as toward the low-ended type.