SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM
MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY
Edwin Tappan Adney and Howard I. Chapelle
Publications of the United States National Museum
The scholarly and scientific publications of the United States National Museum include two series, Proceedings of the United States National Museum and United States National Museum Bulletin.
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The Proceedings, begun in 1878, are intended for the publication, in separate form, of shorter papers from the Museum of Natural History. These are gathered in volumes, octavo in size, with the publication date of each paper recorded in the table of contents of the volume.
In the Bulletin series, the first of which was issued in 1875, appear longer, separate publications consisting of monographs (occasionally in several parts) and volumes in which are collected works on related subjects. Bulletins are either octavo or quarto in size, depending on the needs of the presentation. Since 1902 papers relating to the botanical collections of the Museum of Natural History have been published in the Bulletin series under the heading Contributions from the United States National Herbarium, and since 1959, in Bulletins titled "Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology," have been gathered shorter papers relating to the collections and research of that Museum.
This work, the result of cooperation with the Mariners' Museum, the Stefansson Library, the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, and the American Museum of Natural History, forms number 230 of the Bulletin series.
Frank A. Taylor
Director, United States National Museum
Special acknowledgment
Is here gratefully made to The Mariners' Museum, Newport News, Virginia, under whose auspices was prepared and with whose cooperation is here published the part of this work based on the Adney papers; also to the late Vilhjalmur Stefansson, for whose Encyclopedia Arctica was written the chapter on Arctic skin boats.
America
Figure 1
Fur-Trade Canoe on the Missinaibi River, 1901. (Canadian Geological Survey photo.)
The bark canoes of the North American Indians, particularly those of birch bark, were among the most highly developed of manually propelled primitive watercraft. Built with Stone Age tools from materials available in the areas of their use, their design, size, and appearance were varied so as to create boats suitable to the many and different requirements of their users. The great skill exhibited in their design and construction shows that a long period of development must have taken place before they became known to white men.
The Indian bark canoes were most efficient watercraft for use in forest travel; they were capable of being propelled easily with a single-bladed paddle. This allowed the paddler, unlike the oarsman, to face the direction of travel, a necessity in obstructed or shoal waters and in fast-moving streams. The canoes, being light, could be carried overland for long distances, even where trails were rough or nonexistent. Yet they could carry heavy loads in shallow water and could be repaired in the forest without special tools.
Bark canoes were designed for various conditions: some for use in rapid streams, some for quiet waters, some for the open waters of lakes, some for use along the coast. Most were intended for portage in overland transportation as well. They were built in a variety of sizes, from small one-man hunting and fishing canoes to canoes large enough to carry a ton of cargo and a crew, or a war-party, or one or more families moving to new habitations. Some canoes were designed so that they could be used, turned bottom up, for shelter ashore.
The superior qualities of the bark canoes of North America are indicated by the white man's unqualified adoption of the craft. Almost as soon as he arrived in North America, the white man learned to use the canoe, without alteration, for wilderness travel. Much later, when the original materials used in building were no longer readily available, canvas was substituted for bark, and nails for the lashings and sewing; but as long as manual propulsion was used, the basic models of the bark canoes were retained. Indeed, the models and the proportions used in many of these old bark canoes are retained in the canoes used today in the wildernesses of northern Canada and Alaska, and the same styles may be seen in the canoes used for pleasure in the summer resorts of Europe and America. The bark canoe of North America shares with the Eskimo kayak the distinction of being one of the few primitive craft of which the basic models are retained in the boats of civilized man.
It may seem strange, then, that the literature on American bark canoes is so limited. Many possible explanations for this might be offered. One is that the art of bark canoe building died early, as the Indians came into contact with the whites, before there was any attempt fully to record Indian culture. The bark canoe is fragile compared to the dugout. The latter might last hundreds of years submerged in a bog, but the bark canoe will not last more than a few decades. It is difficult, in fact, to preserve bark canoes in museums, for as they age and the bark becomes brittle, they are easily damaged in moving and handling.
Some small models made by Indians are preserved, but, like most models made by primitive men, these are not to any scale and do not show with equal accuracy all parts of the canoes they represent. They are, therefore, of value only when full-sized canoes of the same type are available for comparison, but this is too rarely the case with the American Indian bark canoes. Today the builders who might have added to our knowledge are long dead.
It might be said fairly that those who had the best opportunities to observe, including many whose profession it was to record the culture of primitive man, showed little interest in watercraft and have left us only the most meager descriptions. Even when the watercraft of the primitive man had obviously played a large part in his culture, we rarely find a record complete enough to allow the same accuracy of reproduction that obtains, say, for his art, his dress, or his pottery. Once lost, the information on primitive watercraft cannot, as a rule, be recovered.
However, as far as the bark canoes of North America are concerned, there was another factor. The student who became sufficiently interested to begin research soon discovered that one man was devoting his lifetime to the study of these craft; that, in a field with few documentary records and fewer artifacts, he had had opportunities for detailed examination not open to younger men; and that it was widely expected that this man would eventually publish his findings. Hence many, who might otherwise have carried on some research and writing, turned to other subjects. Practically, then, the whole field had been left to Edwin Tappan Adney.
Born at Athens, Ohio, in 1868, Edwin Tappan Adney was the son of Professor H. H. Adney, formerly a colonel in a volunteer regiment in the Civil War but then on the faculty of Ohio University. His mother was Ruth Shaw Adney. Edwin Tappan Adney did not receive a college education, but he managed to pursue three years' study of art with The Art Students' League of New York. Apparently he was interested in ornithology as well as in art, and spent much time in New York museums, where he met Ernest Thompson Seton and other naturalists. Being unable to afford more study in art school, he went on what was intended to be a short vacation, in 1887, to Woodstock, New Brunswick. There he became interested in the woods-life of Peter Joe, a Malecite Indian who lived in a temporary camp nearby. This life so interested the 19-year-old Ohioan that he turned toward the career of an artist-craftsman, recording outdoor scenes of the wilderness in pictures.
He undertook to learn the handicrafts of the Indian, in order to picture him and his works correctly, and lengthened his stay. In 1889, Adney and Peter Joe each built a birch-bark canoe, Adney following and recording every step the Indian made during construction. The result Adney published, with sketches, in Harper's Young People magazine, July 29, 1890, and, in a later version, in Outing, May 1900. These, so far as is known, are the earliest detailed descriptions of a birch-bark canoe, with instructions for building one. Daniel Beard considered them the best, and with Adney's permission used the material in his Boating Book for Boys.
In 1897, Adney went to the Klondike as an artist and special correspondent for Harper's Weekly and The London Chronicle, to report on the gold-rush. He also wrote a book on his experience, Klondike Stampede, published in 1900. In 1899 he married Minnie Bell Sharp, of Woodstock, but by 1900 Adney was again in the Northwest, this time as special correspondent for Colliers magazine at Nome, Alaska, during the gold-rush of that year. On his return to New York, Adney engaged in illustrating outdoor scenes and also lectured for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In 1908 he contributed to a Harper's Outdoor Book for Boys. From New York he removed to Montreal and became a citizen of Canada, entering the Canadian Army as a Lieutenant of Engineers in 1916. He was assigned to the construction of training models and was on the staff of the Military College, mustering out in 1919. He then made his home in Montreal, engaging in painting and illustrating. From his early years in Woodstock he had made a hobby of the study of birch-bark canoes, and while in Montreal he became honorary consultant to the Museum of McGill University, dealing with Indian lore. By 1925 Adney had assembled a great deal of material and, to clarify his ideas, he began construction of scale models of each type of canoe, carrying on a very extensive correspondence with Indians, factors and other employees (retired and active) of the Hudson's Bay Company, and with government agents on the Indian Reservations. He also made a number of expeditions to interview Indians. Possessing linguistic ability in Malecite, he was much interested in all the Indian languages; this helped him in his canoe studies.
Owing to personal and financial misfortunes, he and his wife (then blind) returned in the early 1930's to her family homestead in Woodstock, where Mrs. Adney died in 1937. Adney continued his work under the greatest difficulties, including ill-health, until his death, October 10, 1950. He did not succeed in completing his research and had not organized his collection of papers and notes for publication when he died.
Through the farsightedness of Frederick Hill, then director of The Mariners' Museum, Newport News, Virginia, Adney had, ten years before his death, deposited in the museum over a hundred of his models and a portion of his papers. After his death his son Glenn Adney cooperated in placing in The Mariners' Museum the remaining papers dealing with bark canoes, thus completing the "Adney Collection."
Frederick Hill's appreciation of the scope and value of the collection prompted him to seek my assistance in organizing this material with a view to publication. Though the Adney papers were apparently complete and were found, upon careful examination, to contain an immense amount of valuable information, they were in a highly chaotic state. At the request of The Mariners' Museum, I have assembled the pertinent papers and have compiled from Adney's research notes as complete a description as I could of bark canoes, their history, construction, decoration and use. I had long been interested in the primitive watercraft of the Americas, but I was one of those who had discontinued research on bark canoes upon learning of Adney's work. The little I had accomplished dealt almost entirely with the canoes of Alaska and British Columbia; from these I had turned to dugouts and to the skin boats of the Eskimo. Therefore I have faced with much diffidence the task of assembling and preparing the Adney papers for publication, particularly since it was not always clear what Adney had finally decided about certain matters pertaining to canoes. His notes were seldom arranged in a sequence that would enable the reader to decide which, of a number of solutions or opinions given, were Adney's final ones.
Adney's interest in canoes, as canoes, was very great, but his interest in anthropology led him to form many opinions about pre-Columbian migrations of Indian tribes and about the significance of the decorations used in some canoes. His papers contain considerable discussion of these matters, but they are in such state that only an ethnologist could edit and evaluate them. In addition, my own studies lead me to conclude that the mere examination of watercraft alone is insufficient evidence upon which to base opinions as far-reaching as those of Adney. Therefore I have not attempted to present in this work any of Adney's theories regarding the origin or ethnological significance of the canoes discussed. I have followed the same practice with those Adney papers which concern Indian language, some of which relate to individual tribal canoe types and are contained in the canoe material. (Most of his papers on linguistics are now in The Peabody Museum, Salem, Massachusetts.)
The strength and weaknesses of Adney's work, as shown in his papers, drawings, and models, seem to me to be fully apparent. That part dealing with the eastern Indians, with whom he had long personal contact, is by far the most voluminous and, perhaps, the most accurate. The canoes used by Indians west of the St. Lawrence as far as the western end of the Great Lakes and northward to the west side of Hudsons Bay are, with a few exceptions, covered in somewhat less detail, but the material nonetheless appears ample for our purpose. The canoes used in the Canadian Northwest, except those from the vicinity of Great Slave Lake, and in Alaska were less well described. It appears that Adney had relatively little opportunity to examine closely the canoes used in Alaska, during his visit there in 1900, and that he later was unable to visit those American museums having collections that would have helped him with regard to these areas. As a result, I have found it desirable to add my own material on these areas, drawn largely from the collections of American museums and from my notes on construction details.
An important part of Adney's work deals with the large canoes used in the fur trade. Very little beyond the barest of descriptions has been published and, with but few exceptions, contemporary paintings and drawings of these canoes are obviously faulty. Adney was fortunate enough to have been able to begin his research on these canoes while there were men alive who had built and used them. As a result he obtained information that would have been lost within, at most, the span of a decade. His interest was doubly keen, fortunately, for Adney not only was interested in the canoes as such, he also valued the information for its aid in painting historical scenes. As a result, there is hardly a question concerning fur trade canoes, whether of model, construction, decoration, or use, that is not answered in his material.
I have made every effort to preserve the results of Adney's investigations of the individual types in accurate drawings or in the descriptions in the text. It was necessary to redraw and complete most of Adney's scale drawings of canoes, for they were prepared for model-building rather than for publication. Where his drawings were incomplete, they could be filled in from his scale models and notes. It must be kept in mind that in drawing plans of primitive craft the draftsman must inevitably "idealize" the subject somewhat, since a drawing shows fair curves and straight lines which the primitive craft do not have in all cases. Also, the inboard profiles are diagrammatic rather than precise, because, in the necessary reduction of the full-size canoe to a drawing, this is the only way to show its "form" in a manner that can be interpreted accurately and that can be reproduced in a model or full size, as desired. It is necessary to add that, though most of the Adney plans were measured from full-size canoes, some were reconstructed from Indian models, builders' information, or other sources. Thanks to Adney's thorough knowledge of bark construction, the plans are highly accurate, but there are still chances for error, and these are discussed where they occur.
Although reconstruction of extinct canoe types is difficult, for the strange canoes of the Beothuk Indians of Newfoundland Adney appears to have solved some of the riddles posed by contemporary descriptions and the few grave models extant (the latter may have been children's toys). Whether or not his reconstructed canoe is completely accurate cannot be determined; at least it conforms reasonably well to the descriptions and models, and Adney's thorough knowledge of Indian craftsmanship gives weight to his opinions and conclusions. This much can be said: the resulting canoe would be a practical one and it fulfills very nearly all descriptions of the type known today.
Adney's papers and drawings dealing with the construction of bark canoes are most complete and valuable. So complete as to be almost a set of "how-to-do-it" instructions, they cover everything from the selection of materials and use of tools to the art of shaping and building the canoe. An understanding of these building instructions is essential to any sound examination of the bark canoes of North America, for they show the limitations of the medium and indicate what was and what was not reasonable to expect from the finished product.
In working on Adney's papers, it became obvious that this publication could not be limited to birch-bark canoes, since canoes built of other barks and even some covered with skins appear in the birch bark areas. Because of this, and to explain the technical differences between these and the birch canoes, skin-covered canoes have been included. I have also appended a chapter on Eskimo skin boats and kayaks. This material I had originally prepared for inclusion in the Encyclopedia Arctica, publication of which was cancelled after one volume had appeared. As a result, the present work now covers the native craft, exclusive of dugouts, of all North America north of Mexico.
In my opinion the value of the information gathered by Edwin Tappan Adney is well worth the effort that has been expended to bring it to its present form, and any merit that attaches to it belongs largely to Adney himself, whose long and painstaking research, carried on under severe personal difficulties, is the foundation of this study.
Howard Irving Chapelle Curator of Transportation, Museum of History and Technology
The development of bark canoes in North America before the arrival of the white men cannot satisfactorily be traced. Unlike the dugout, the bark canoe is too perishable to survive in recognizable form buried in a bog or submerged in water, so we have little or no visual evidence of very great age upon which to base sound assumptions.
Records of bark canoes, contained in the reports of the early white explorers of North America, are woefully lacking in detail, but they at least give grounds for believing that the bark canoes even then were highly developed, and were the product of a very long period of existence and improvement prior to the first appearance of Europeans.
The Europeans were most impressed by the fact that the canoes were built of bark reinforced by a light wooden frame. The speed with which they could be propelled by the Indians also caused amazement, as did their light weight and marked strength, combined with a great load-carrying capacity in shallow water. It is remarkable, however, that although bark canoes apparently aroused so much admiration among Europeans, so little of accurate and complete information appears in their writings.
With two notable exceptions, to be discussed later, early explorers, churchmen, travellers, and writers were generally content merely to mention the number of persons in a canoe. The first published account of variations in existing forms of the American bark canoe does not occur until 1724, and the first known illustration of a bark canoe accurate enough to indicate its tribal designation appeared only two years earlier. This fact makes any detailed examination of the early books dealing with North America quite unprofitable as far as precise information on bark canoes is concerned.
The first known reference by a Frenchman to the bark canoe is that of Jacques Cartier, who reported that he saw two bark canoes in 1535; he said the two carried a total of 17 men. Champlain was the first to record any definite dimensions of the bark canoes; he wrote that in 1603 he saw, near what is now Quebec, bark canoes 8 to 9 paces long and 1½ paces wide, and he added that they might transport as much as a pipe of wine yet were light enough to be carried easily by one man. If a pace is taken as about 30 inches, then the canoes would have been between 20 and 23 feet long, between 40 and 50 inches beam and capable of carrying about half a ton, English measurements. These were apparently Algonkin canoes. Champlain was impressed by the speed of the bark canoes; he reported that his fully manned longboat was passed by two canoes, each with two paddlers. As will be seen, he was perhaps primarily responsible for the rapid adoption of bark canoes by the early French in Canada.
The first English reference that has been found is in the records of Captain George Weymouth's voyage. He and his crew in 1603 saw bark canoes to the westward of Penobscot Bay, on what is now the coast of Maine. The English were impressed, just as Champlain had been, by the speed with which canoes having but three or four paddlers could pass his ship's boat manned with four oarsmen. Weymouth also speaks admiringly of the fine workmanship shown in the structure of the canoes.
When Champlain attacked the Iroquois, on what is now Lake Champlain, he found that these Indians had "oak" bark (more probably elm) canoes capable of carrying 10, 15, and 18 men. This would indicate that the maximum size of the Iroquois canoes was about 30 to 33 feet long. The illustrations in his published account indicate canoes about 30 feet long; but early illustrations of this kind were too often the product of the artist's imagination, just as were the delineations of the animals and plants of North America.
As an example of what may be deduced from other early French accounts, Champlain in 1615, with a companion and 12 Indians, embarked at La Chine in two bark canoes for a trip to the Great Lakes. He stated that the two canoes, with men and baggage aboard, were over-crowded. Taking one of these canoes as having 7 men and baggage aboard, it seems apparent that it was not much larger than the largest of the canoes Champlain had seen in 1603 on the St. Lawrence. But in 1672, Louis Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette traveled in two canoes, carrying a total of 5 French and 25 Indians—say 14 in one canoe and 16 in the other. These canoes, then, must have been at least 28 feet long over the gunwales, exclusive of the round of the ends, or about 30 feet overall. The Chevalier Henri de Tonti, one of La Salle's officers, mentions a canoe carrying 30 men—probably 14 paddlers on each side, a steersman, and a passenger or officer. Such a capacity might indicate a canoe about 40 feet over the gunwales, though this seems very long indeed; it is more probable that the canoe would be about 36 feet long.
Another of La Salle's officers, Baron de LaHontan, gave the first reasonably complete account that has been found of the size and character of a birch-bark canoe. This was written at Montreal June 29, 1684. After stating that he had seen at least a hundred bark canoes in his journeys, he said that birch-bark canoes ranged in length from 10 to 28 pieds and were capable of carrying from 2 to 14 persons. The largest, when carrying cargo, might be handled by three men and could carry 2,000 pounds of freight (20 quintals). These large canoes were safe and never upset. They were built of bark peeled in the winter; hot water was thrown on the bark to make it pliable, so that it could be rolled up after it was removed from the tree. The canoes were built of more than one piece of bark as a rule.
The large canoes, he reports, were 28 pieds long, 4½ pieds wide and 20 pouces deep, top of gunwale to top of frames on bottom. The last indicates "inside" measurement; in this the length would be over the gunwales, not overall, and the beam inside the gunwales, not extreme. He also says the canoes had a lining or sheathing of cedar "splints" or plank and, inside this, cedar ribs or frames. The bark was the thickness of an écu (this coin, a crown, was a little less than ⅛ inch thick), the sheathing the thickness of two écus, and the ribs of three. The ends of the ribs were pointed and these were seated in holes in the underside of the gunwales. There were 8 crosspieces (thwarts) between the gunwales (note: such a canoe would commonly have 9 thwarts; LaHontan may have erred here).
The canoes were convenient, he says, because of their great lightness and shallow draft, but they were easily damaged. Hence they had to be loaded and unloaded afloat and usually required repairs to the bark covers at the end of each day. They had to be staked down at night, so that a strong wind might not damage or blow them away; but this light weight permitted them to be carried with ease by two men, one at each end, and this suited them for use on the rivers of Canada, where rapids and falls made carrying frequently necessary. These canoes were of no value on the Lakes, LaHontan states, as they could not be used in windy weather; though in good weather they might cross lakes and might go four or five leagues on open water. The canoes carried small sails, but these could be used only with fair winds of moderate force. The paddlers might kneel, sit, or stand to paddle and pole the canoes. The paddle blade was 20 pouces long, 6 wide, and 4 lignes thick; the handle was of the diameter of a pigeon's egg and three pieds long. The paddlers also had a "setting pole," to pole the canoes in shoal water. The canoes were alike at both ends and cost 80 écus (LaHontan's cost 90), and would last not more than five or six years. The foregoing is but a condensed extract of LaHontan's lively account.
In translating LaHontan's measurements a pied is taken as 12.79 inches, a pouce as about 1⅛ inches. The French fathom, or brasse, as used in colonial Canada, was the length from finger-tip to finger-tip of the arms outstretched and so varied, but may be roughly estimated as about 64 inches; this was the "fathom" used later in classing fur-trade canoes for length. In English measurements his large canoe would have been about 30 feet long over the gunwales and, perhaps, almost 33 feet overall, 57½ inches beam inside the gunwales, or about 60 inches extreme beam. The depth inside would be 21 or 21¾ inches bottom to top of gunwale amidships. LaHontan also described the elm-bark canoes of the Iroquois as being large and wide enough to carry 30 paddlers, 15 on a side, sitting or standing. Here again a canoe about 40 feet long is indicated. He said that these elm-bark canoes were crude, heavy and slow, with low sides, so that once he and his men reached an open lake, he no longer feared pursuit by the Iroquois in these craft.
Figure 2
Page From a Manuscript of 1771, "Observations on Hudsons Bay," by Alexander Graham, Factor, now in the archives of the Hudson's Bay Company in London. The birch-bark canoe at the top, the kayak below, and the paddles are obviously drawn by one not trained to observe as an artist.
From the slight evidence offered in such records as these, it appears that the Indians may have had, when the Europeans first reached Canada, canoes at least as long as the 5-fathom or 5½-fathom canoe of later times. It appears also that these dimensions applied to the canoes of the Great Lakes area and perhaps to the elm-bark canoes of the Iroquois as well. Probably there were canoes as short as 10 feet, used as one-man hunting and fishing boats, and it is plainly evident that canoes between this length and about 24 feet were very common. The evidence in La Salle's time, in the last half of the seventeenth century, must be taken with some caution, as French influence on the size of large canoes may have by then come into play. The comparison between the maximum length of the Iroquois canoes, inferred from the report of Champlain, and that suggested by LaHontan, might indicate this growth.
Beginning as early as 1660, the colonial government of Canada issued congés or trading licenses. These were first granted to the military officers or their families; later the congés were issued to all approved traders, and the fees were used for pensions of the military personnel. Records of these licenses, preserved from about 1700, show that three men commonly made up the crew of a trading canoe in the earliest years, but that by 1725 five men were employed, by 1737 seven men, and by 1747 seven or eight men. However, as LaHontan has stated that in his time three men were sufficient to man a large canoe with cargo, it is evident that the congés offer unreliable data and do not necessarily prove that the size of canoes had increased during this period. The increase in the crews may have been brought about by the greater distances travelled, with an increased number of portages or, perhaps, by heavier items of cargo.
The war canoe does not appear in these early accounts as a special type. According to the traditions of the eastern Micmac and Malecite Indians, their war canoes were only large enough to carry three or four warriors and so must not have exceeded 18 feet in length. These were built for speed, narrow and with very sharp ends; the bottom was made as smooth as was possible. Each canoe carried the insignia of each of its warriors, that is, his personal mark or sign. A canoe carrying a war leader had only his personal mark, none for the rest of the crew. It is possible to regard the large canoes of the Iroquois as "war canoes" since they were used in the pursuit of French raiders in LaHontan's time. However, the Iroquois did not build the canoes primarily for war; in early times these fierce tribesmen preferred to take to the warpath in the dead of winter and to raid overland on snowshoes. In open weather, they used the rough, short-lived and quickly built elm-bark canoes to cross streams and lakes or to follow waterways, discarding them when the immediate purpose was accomplished. Probably it was the French who really produced the bark "war canoes," for they appear to have placed great emphasis on large canoes for use of the military, as indicated by LaHontan's concern with the largest canoes of his time. Perhaps large bark canoes were once used on the Great Lakes for war parties, but, if so, no mention of a special type has been found in the early French accounts. The sparse references suggest that both large and small canoes were used by the war parties but that no special type paralleling the characteristics of the Micmac and Malecite war canoes existed in the West. The huge dugout war canoe of the Indians of the Northwest Coast appears to have had no counterpart in size among the birch or elm bark canoes.
Except for LaHontan, the early French writers who refer to the use of sail agree that the canoes were quite unfitted for sailing. It is extremely doubtful that the prehistoric Indians using bark canoes were acquainted with sails, though it is possible that the coastal Indians might have set up a bush in the bow to utilize a following wind and thus lighten the labor of paddling. However, once the Indian saw the usefulness of a sail demonstrated by white men, he was quick to adopt it; judging from the LaHontan reference, and the use of sails in canoes must have become well established in some areas by 1685.
One of the most important elements in the history of the canoe is its early adoption by the French. Champlain was the first to recommend its use by white men. He stated that the bark canoe would be very necessary in trade and exploration, pointing out that in order to penetrate the back country above the rapids at Montreal, during the short summer season, and to come back in time to return to France for the winter (unless the winter was to be spent in Canada) the canoe would have to be used. With it the small and large streams could be navigated safely and the numerous overland carries could be quickly made. Also, of course, Indians could be employed as crews without the need of training them to row. This general argument in favor of the bark canoe remained sound after the desirability of going home to France for the winter had ceased to influence French ideas. The quick expansion of the French fur trade in the early seventeenth century opened up the western country into the Great Lakes area and to the northward. It was soon discovered that by using canoes on the ancient canoe route along the Ottawa River goods could reach the western posts on the Lakes and be transported north early enough to reach the northernmost posts before the first freeze-up occurred. The use of sailing vessels on the Lakes did not enable this to be accomplished, so that until the railroads were built in western Canada, the canoe remained the mode of transport for the fur trade in this area. Even after the railways were built, canoe traffic remained important, until well into the first half of the twentieth century as part of the local system of transportation in the northwestern country of Canada.
Figure 3
Canoes From LaHontan's Nouveaux Voyages ... dans l'Amerique Septentrionale, showing crude representations typical of early writers.
The unsatisfactory illustrations accompanying early published accounts have been mentioned. The earliest recognizable canoe to be shown in an illustration is the reasonably accurate drawing of a Micmac canoe that appears in Bacqueville de la Poterie's book, published in 1722. LaFiteau, another Frenchman, in 1724 published a book that not only contains recognizable drawings but points out reasons for the variation in the appearance of bark canoes:
The Abenacquis, for example, are less high in the sides, less large, and more flat at the two ends; in a way they are almost level for their whole extent; because those who travel on their small rivers are sure to be troubled and struck by the branches of trees that border and extend over the water. On the other hand, the Outaouacs [Ottawas] and the nations of the upper country having to do their navigation on the St. Lawrence River where there are many falls and rapids, or especially on the Lakes where there is always a very considerable swell, must have high ends.
His illustrations show that his low-ended canoes were of Micmac type but that his high-ended canoes were not of the Ottawa River or Great Lakes types but rather of the eastern Malecite of the lower St. Lawrence valley. This Jesuit missionary also noted that the canoes were alike at the ends and that the paddles were of maple and about 5 feet long, with blades 18 inches long and 6 wide. He observed that bark canoes were unfitted for sailing.
Figure 4
Lines of an Old Birch-Bark Canoe, probably Micmac, brought to England in 1749 from New England. This canoe was not alike at both ends, although apparently intended to be so by the builder. (From Admiralty Collection of Draughts, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.)
The early English settlers of New England and New York were acquainted with the canoe forms of eastern Indians such as the Micmac, Malecite, Abnaki, and the Iroquois. Surviving records, however, show no detailed description of these canoes by an English writer and no illustration until about 1750. At this time a bark canoe, apparently Micmac, was brought from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to England and delivered to Lord Anson who had it placed in the Boat House of the Chatham Dockyard. There it was measured and a scale drawing was made by Admiralty draftsmen; the drawing is now in the Admiralty Collection of Draughts, in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. A redrawing of this plan appears opposite. It probably represents a war canoe, since a narrow, sharp-ended canoe is shown. The bottom, neither flat nor fully round, is a rounded V-shape; this may indicate a canoe intended for coastal waters. Other drawings, of a later date, showing crude plans of canoes, exist in Europe but none yet found appear as carefully drawn as the Admiralty plan, a scale drawing, which seems to be both the earliest and the most accurate 18th-century representation of a tribal type of American Indian bark canoe.
Due to the rapid development of the French fur trade, and the attendant exploration, a great variety of canoe types must have become known to the French by 1750, yet little in the way of drawings and no early scale plans have been found. This is rather surprising, not only because the opportunity for observation existed but also because a canoe factory was actually operated by the French. The memoirs of Colonel Franquet, Military Engineer-in-Chief for New France, contain extensive references to this factory as it existed in 1751.
The canoe factory was located at Trois Rivières, just below Montreal, on the St. Lawrence. A standard large canoe was built, and the rate of production was then 20 a year. Franquet gives as the dimensions of the canoes the following (converted to English measurement): length 36 feet, beam about 5½ feet, and depth about 33 inches. Much of his description is not clear, but it seems evident that the canoe described was very much like the later grand canot, or large canoe, of the fur trade. The date at which this factory was established is unknown; it may have existed as early as 1700, as might have been required by the rapid expansion of the French trade and other activities in the last half of the previous century. It is apparent from early comments that the French found the Indian canoe-builders unreliable, not to say most uncertain, as a source of supply. The need for large canoes for military and trade operations had forced the establishment of such a factory as soon as Europeans could learn how to build the canoes. This would, in fact, have been the only possible solution.
Of course, it must not be assumed that the bark canoes were the only watercraft used by the early French traders. They used plank boats as well, ranging from scows to flat-bottomed bateaux and ship's boats, and they also had some early sailing craft built on the Great Lakes and on the lower St. Lawrence. The bateau, shaped much like a modern dory but with a sharp stern, was adopted by the English settlers as well as the French. In early colonial times this form of boat was called by the English a "battoe," or "Schenectady Boat," and later, an "Albany Boat." It was sharp at both ends, it usually had straight flaring sides with a flat bottom, and was commonly built of white pine plank. Some, however, had rounded sides and lapstrake planking, as shown by a plan of a bateau of 1776 in the Admiralty Collection of Draughts. Early bateaux had about the same range of size as the bark canoes but later ones were larger.
After the English gained control of Canada, the records of the Hudson's Bay Company, and of individual traders and travellers such as Alexander Henry, Jr., and Alexander MacKenzie, at the end of the eighteenth century, give much material on the fur-trade canoes but little on the small Indian canoes. In general, these records show that the fur-trade canoe of the West was commonly 24 feet long inside the gunwales, exclusive of the curves of bow and stern; 4 feet 9 inches beam; 26 inches deep; and light enough to be carried by two men, as MacKenzie recorded, "three or four miles without resting on a good road." But the development of the fur-trade canoes is best left for a later chapter.
The use of the name "canoe" for bark watercraft does not appear to been taken from a North American Indian usage. The early French explorers and travellers called these craft canau (pl. canaux). As this also meant "canal," the name canot (pl. canots) was soon substituted. But some early writers preferred to call the canoe ecorse de bouleau, or birch-bark, and sometimes the name used was merely the generic petit embarcation, or small boat. The early English term was "canoa," later "canoe." The popular uses of canoe, canoa, canau, and canot are thought to have begun early in the sixteenth century as the adaptation of a Carib Indian word for a dugout canoe.
Summary
It will be seen that the early descriptions of the North American bark canoes are generally lacking in exact detail. Yet this scanty information strongly supports the claim that bark canoes were highly developed and that the only influence white men exercised upon their design was related to an increase in size of the large canoes that may have taken place in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The very early recognition of the speed, fine construction, and general adaptability of the bark canoes to wilderness travel sustain this view. The two known instances mentioned of early accurate illustration emphasize that distinct variations in tribal forms of canoes existed, and that these were little changed between early colonial times and a relatively recent period, despite steadily increasing influence of the European.
Bark of the paper birch was the material preferred by the North American Indians for the construction of their canoes, although other barks were used where birch was not available. This tree (Betula papyrifera Marsh.), also known as the canoe birch, is found in good soil, often near streams, and where growing conditions are favorable it becomes large, reaching a height of a hundred feet, with a butt diameter of thirty inches or more. Its range forms a wide belt across the continent, with the northern limits in Canada along a line extending westward from Newfoundland to the southern shores of Hudson Bay and thence generally northwestward to Great Bear Lake, the Yukon River, and the Alaskan coast. The southern limits extend roughly westward from Long Island to the southern shores of Lake Erie and through central Michigan to Lake Superior, thence through Wisconsin, northern Nebraska, and northwesterly through the Dakotas, northern Montana, and northern Washington to the Pacific Coast. The trees are both abundant and large in the eastern portion of the belt, particularly in Newfoundland, Quebec, the Maritime Provinces, Ontario, Maine, and New Hampshire, in contrast to the western areas. Near the limits of growth to the north and south the trees are usually small and scattered.
The leaves are rather small, deep green, and pointed-oval, and are often heart-shaped at the base. The edges of the leaves are rather coarsely toothed along the margin, which is slightly six-notched. The small limbs are black, sometimes spotted with white, and the large are white.
The bark of the tree has an aromatic odor when freshly peeled, and is chalky white marked with black splotches on either side of limbs or where branches have grown at one time. Elsewhere on the bark, dark, or black, horizontal lines of varying lengths also appear. The lower part of the tree, to about the height of winter snows, has bark that is usually rough, blemished and thin; above this level, to the height of the lowest large limbs, the bark is often only slightly blemished and is thick and well formed. The bark is made up of paper-like layers, their color deepens with each layer from the chalky white of the exterior through creamy buff to a light tan on the inner layer. A gelatinous greenish to yellow rind, or cambium layer, lies between the bark and the wood of the trunk; its characteristics are different from those of the rest of the bark. The horizontal lines that appear on each successive paper-like layer do not appear on the rind.
The thickness of the bark cannot be judged from the size of a tree and may vary markedly among trees of the same approximate size in a single grove. The thickness varies from a little less than one-eighth to over three-sixteenths inch; bark with a thickness of one-quarter inch or more is rarely found. For canoe construction, bark must be over one-eighth inch thick, tough, and from a naturally straight trunk of sufficient diameter and length to give reasonably large pieces. The "eyes" must be small and not so closely spaced as to allow the bark to split easily in their vicinity.
The bark can be peeled readily when the sap is flowing. In winter, when the exterior of the tree is frozen, the bark can be removed only when heat is applied. During a prolonged thaw, however, this may be accomplished without the application of heat. Bark peeled from the tree during a winter thaw, and early in the spring or late in the fall, usually adheres strongly to the inner rind, which comes away from the tree with the bark. The act of peeling, however, puts a strain on the bark, so that only tough, well-made bark can be removed under these conditions. This particular characteristic caused Indians in the east to call bark with the rind adhering "winter bark," even though it might have been peeled from a tree during the warm weather of early summer. Since in large trees the flow of sap usually starts later than in small ones, the period in which good bark is obtainable may extend into late June in some localities. Upon exposure to air and moisture, the inner rind first turns orange-red and gradually darkens with age until in a few years it becomes dark brown, or sepia. If it is first moistened, the rind can be scraped off, and this allowed it to be employed in decoration, enough being left to form designs. Hence winter bark was prized.
To the eastern Indians "summer bark" was a poor grade that readily separated into its paper-like layers, a characteristic of bark peeled in hot weather, or of poorly made bark in any season. In the west, however, high-quality bark was often scarce and, therefore, the distinction between winter and summer bark does not seem to have been made. Newfoundland once had excellent canoe bark, as did the Maritime Provinces, Maine, New Hampshire, and Quebec, but the best bark was found back from the seacoast. Ontario and the country to the immediate north of Lake Superior are also said to have produced bark of high quality for canoe building.
The bark of the paper birch was preferred for canoe building because it could be obtained in quite large sheets clear of serious blemishes; because its grain ran around the tree rather than along the line of vertical tree growth, so that sheets could be "sewn" together to obtain length in a canoe; and because the bark was resinous and not only did not stretch and shrink as did other barks, but also had some elasticity when green, or when kept damp. This elasticity, of course, was lost once the bark was allowed to become dry through exposure to air and sunshine, a factor which controlled to some extent the technique of its employment.
Many other barks were employed in bark canoe construction, but in most instances the craft were for temporary or emergency use and were discarded after a short time. Such barks as spruce (Picea), elm (Ulmus), chestnut (Castenea dentata L.), hickory (Carya spp.), basswood (Tilia spp.), and cottonwood (Populus