The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 26

The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 26

END DECORATIONS, PASSAMAQUODDY CANOE built by Tomah Joseph.]

 

[Illustration: Figure 79

 

PASSAMAQUODDY DECORATED CANOE built by Tomah Joseph.]

 

The drawings and plans on pages 71 to 87 will serve better than words

to show these characteristic designs and decorations. It is doubtful

that color, paint or pigment, was used in decorating the Malecite bark

canoes before the coming of Europeans, but it was employed occasionally

in the last half of the 19th century. The beauty of the Malecite canoe

designs lay not in the barbaric display of color characteristic of

the large fur-traders' canoes, but in the tasteful distribution of

the scraped winter bark decoration along the sides of the hull. The

workmanship exhibited by the Malecite in the construction of their

canoes was generally very fine; indeed, they were perhaps the most

finished craftsmen among Indian canoe-builders.

 

 

_St. Francis_

 

The tribal composition of the Abnaki Indians is somewhat uncertain.

The group was certainly made up of a portion of the old Malecite

group, the Kennebec and Penobscot, but later also included the whole

or parts of the refugee Indians of other New England tribes who were

forced to flee before the advancing white settlers. It is probable

that among the refugees were the Cowassek (Coosuc), Pennacook, and the

Ossipee. There were also some Maine tribes among these--the Sokoki,

Androscoggin, (Arosaguntacook), Wewenoc, Taconnet, and Pequawket. It is

probable that the tribal groups from southern and central New England

were mere fragments and that the largest number to make up the Abnaki

were Malecite. The latter in turn were driven out of their old homes on

the lower Maine coast and drifted northwestward into the old hunting

grounds of the Kennebec and Penobscot, northwestern Maine and eastern

Quebec as far as the St. Lawrence. The chief settlement was finally on

the St. Francis River in Quebec, hence the Abnaki were also known as

the "St. Francis Indians." These tribesmen held a deep-seated grudge

against the New Englanders and, by the middle of the 18th century, they

had made themselves thoroughly hated in New England. Siding with the

French, the St. Francis raided the Connecticut Valley and eastward,

taking white children and women home with them after a successful raid,

and as a result the later St. Francis had much white blood. They were

generally enterprising and progressive.

 

Little is known about the canoes of these Abnaki during the period

of their retreat northwestward. It is obvious that the Penobscot, at

least, used the old form of the Malecite canoe. What the canoes of

the other tribal groups were like cannot be stated. However, by the

middle of the 19th century the St. Francis Indians had produced a very

fine birch-bark canoe of distinctive design and excellent workmanship.

These they began to sell to sportsmen, with the result that the type

of canoe became a standard one for hunting and fishing in Quebec. When

other tribal groups discovered the market for canoes, they were forced

to copy the St. Francis model and appearance to a very marked degree

in order to be assured of ready sales. It is obvious, from what is now

known, that the St. Francis had adapted some ideas in canoe building

from Indians west of the St. Lawrence, with whom they had come into

close contact. However, they had also retained much of the building

technique of their Malecite relatives. Hence, the St. Francis canoes

usually represent a blend of building techniques as well as of models.

 

The St. Francis canoe of the last half of the 19th century had

high-peaked ends, with a quick upsweep of the sheer at bow and stern.

The end profile was almost vertical, with a short radius where it

faired into the bottom. The rocker of the bottom took place in the last

18 or 24 inches of the ends, the remaining portion of the bottom being

usually straight. The amount of rocker varied a good deal; apparently

some canoes had only an inch or so while others had as much as four or

five. A few canoes had a projecting "chin" end-profile; the top portion

where it met the sheer was usually a straight line.

 

The midsection was slightly wall-sided, with a rather quick turn of the

bilge. The bottom was nearly flat across, with very slight rounding

until close to the bilges. The end sections were a ~U~-shape that

approached the ~V~ owing to the very quick turn at the centerline. The

ends of the canoe were very sharp, coming in practically straight at

the gunwale and at level lines below it. The gunwales were longer than

the bottom and so the St. Francis canoes were commonly built with a

building-frame which was nearly as wide amidships as the gunwales but

shorter in length.

 

At least one St. Francis canoe, built on Lake Memphremagog, was

constructed with a tumble-home amidships the same as that of some

Malecite canoes. The rocker of the bottom at each end started at the

first thwart on each side of the middle and gradually increased toward

the ends, which faired into the bottom without any break in the curves.

The end profiles projected with a chin that was full and round up to

the peaked stem heads. The sheer swept up sharply near the ends to the

stem heads. This particular canoe represented a hybrid design not

developed for sale to sportsmen, and the sole example, a full-size

canoe formerly in The American Museum of Natural History at New York

and measured by Adney in 1890, is now missing and probably has been

broken up.

 

[Illustration: Figure 80

 

ST. FRANCIS 2-FATHOM CANOE OF ABOUT 1865, with upright stems. Built for

forest travel, this form ranged in size from 12 feet 6 inches overall

and 26½-inch beam, to 16 feet overall and 34-inch beam.]

 

The St. Francis canoes were usually small, being commonly between

12 and 16 feet overall; the 15-foot length usually was preferred by

sportsmen. The width amidships was from 32 to 35 inches and the depth

12 to 14 inches. The 14-foot canoe usually had a beam of about 32

inches and was nearly 14 inches deep; if built for portaging the ends

were somewhat lower than if the canoe was to be used in open waters.

Canoes built for hunting might be as short as 10 or 11 feet and of

only 26 to 28 inches beam; these were the true woods canoes of the St.

Francis.

 

The gunwale structure of the St. Francis canoes followed Malecite

design; it was often of slightly smaller cross section than that of

a Malecite canoe of equal length, but both outwale and cap were of

somewhat larger cross section. The stem-pieces were split and laminated

in the same manner, but occasionally the lamination was at the bottom,

due to the hard curve required where the stem faired into the bottom.

Many such canoes had no headboards, the heavy outwales being carried

to the sides of the stem pieces and secured there to support the main

gunwales. If the headboard was used, it was quite narrow and was

bellied toward the ends of the canoe. In some St. Francis canoes the

bark cover in the rockered bottom near the ends showed a marked ~V~. In

the canoe examined by Adney at the American Museum of Natural History,

the ribs inside toward the end showed no signs of being "broken,"

so it is evident that the ~V~ was formed either by use of a shaped

keel-piece in the sheathing or by an additional batten shaped to give

this ~V~-form under the center strake. Since the ~V~ began where the

rocker in the canoe started, in an almost angular break in the bottom,

it is likely that a shaped batten had been used to form it. He could

not verify this, however, as the area was covered by the frames and

sheathing.

 

[Illustration: Figure 81

 

ST. FRANCIS CANOE OF ABOUT 1910, with narrow, rockered bottom, a model

popular with guides and sportsmen for forest travel.]

 

The sheathing was in short lengths with rounded ends which overlapped,

and it was laid irregularly in the "thrown in" style found in many

western birch-bark canoes. The ribs were commonly about 2 inches wide

and nearly ⅜ inch thick, the width tapering to roughly 1¾ inches under

the gunwales. The ends of the ribs were then sharply reduced in width

to a chisel point about 1 inch wide; the sides of the sharply reduced

taper being beveled, as well as the end. A 15-foot canoe usually had 46

to 50 ribs.

 

The thwarts, unlike those of the Micmac and some Malecite canoes, in

which the thwarts were unequally spaced, were equally spaced according

to a builder's formula. The ends of the thwarts, or crossbars, were

tenoned into the main gunwales and lashed in place through the three

lashing holes in the ends of each thwart, except the end ones, which

usually had but two. In some small canoes, however, two lashing holes

were placed in all thwart ends. The design of the St. Francis thwart

was as a rule very plain, gradually increasing in width from the

center outwards to the tenon at the gunwale in plan and decreasing in

thickness in elevation in the same direction. The ends of the main

gunwales were of the half-arrowhead form, and were covered with a bark

_wulegessis_, but the flaps below the outwales were sometimes cut off,

or they might be formed in some graceful outline.

 

The bark cover was sometimes in one piece; when it was pieced out for

width, the harness-stitch was used. In most canoes, the bark along the

gunwale was doubled by adding a long narrow strip, often left hanging

free below the gunwales and stopping just short of the _wulegessis_,

which it resembled. It was sometimes decorated. A few St. Francis

canoes with nailed gunwales omitted this doubling piece. When used,

the doubling piece, as well as the end cover, were folded down on top

of the gunwale before being sewn into place. The decoration of the

St. Francis canoes seems to have been scant and wholly confined to a

narrow band along the gunwale, or to the doubling pieces. The marking

of the _wulegessis_ had ceased long before Adney investigated this type

of canoe and no living Indian knew of any old marks, if any ever had

been used.

 

[Illustration: Figure 82

 

LOW-ENDED ST. FRANCIS CANOE with ~V~-form end sections made with short,

~V~-shaped keel battens outside the sheathing at each end. Note the

unusual form of headboard, seen in some St. Francis canoes.]

 

The ends were commonly lashed with a spiral or crossed stitch, but

some builders used a series of short-to-long stitches that made groups

generally triangular in appearance. The gunwale lashing was in groups

about 2½ inches long, each having 5 to 7 turns through the bark. The

groups were about 1½ to 1¼ inches apart near the ends and about 2

inches apart elsewhere. The groups were not independent but were made

by bringing the last turn of each group over the top and inside the main gunwale in a long diagonal pass so as to come through the bark from the inside for the first pass of the new group. The caps were originally pegged, with a few lashings at the ends.