Chapter 3 (2)

The thwarts, spaced equal distances apart, were tenoned into the gunwales as in the old Malecite canoes, and were secured with a peg and lashing through the two holes in the thwart ends. The middle thwart was usually formed with a shoulder, viewed in plan, that started 6 or 7 inches inboard of the inside face of the main gunwale. In form, this thwart usually swelled outward in a straight line from the tenon shoulder, then reduced in a curved line to about the width of the tenon tongue and, finally, increased again in a right-angle cut to the greatest width. From here it was reduced again in a long curve to the canoe's center line. The other thwarts usually had simple ends, wide at the tenon shoulder and reduced in a long curve to a narrow center. In elevation, all the thwarts were thin outboard and thick at the centerline of the canoe. The cross section of the center thwart at the centerline was square or nearly so, the first thwart on each side was rectangular in cross section at the center, and the end thwarts were similar, but very thin.

The sheathing of the Têtes de Boule canoes was thin, particularly at the ends of the strakes. The bottom was laid with a parallel-sided center strake going in first. This strake was in two lengths in a small canoe and three lengths in a large, the butts overlapping slightly. The rest of the strakes in the bottom were tapered toward the ends of the canoe. At the extremities of the canoe, the narrow ends of the strakes were very thin and overlapped along their edges, the bottom sheathing, when in place, thus following the diamond form of the building frame. The topside sheathing was laid up in short lengths with overlapping butts and edges in an irregular plan, those strakes along the bilges being longer than above. Toward the ends of the canoe these strakes were slightly tapered and the edges were very thin. The sheathing ended irregularly, outboard of the headboards, in narrow butts as in most eastern canoes.

TÊTES DE BOULE HUNTING CANOE, 1½-FATHOM, with typical construction details and a paddle.]

TÊTES DE BOULE CANOE, 2½-FATHOM, with some construction details.]

The ribs, like the rest of the structure, were very light, usually ¼ to ⅜ inch thick and from about 1¼ to 1¾ inches wide, depending upon the size of the canoe. A few examples had ribs 2 inches wide, and still fewer had ribs up to 2½ inches wide. The spacing was usually close, somewhat more than an inch edge to edge amidships and a little more between the end thwarts and the headboards. The spacing amidships would average perhaps 3¼ inches, center to center. The ends of the ribs, in the last 2 or 3 inches, were reduced in width very sharply in a hollow, curved taper to ½ to ¾ inch wide, and were usually beveled on the inside edge. The thickness was also reduced by a cut on the inside, so that the ends were chisel-pointed with a short bevel on the inboard side. The rib ends were forced between the main gunwales and the bark cover, coming home in the bevel of the lower outboard edge of the main gunwales between the group lashings of the bark cover as in the Malecite canoes. The ribs were not prebent but were placed in the canoe when green, treated with hot water, and then allowed to dry into place. In preparing the rib, it was first bent over the knee. It was the custom of some builders to place under the building frame the ribs that were to go near the ends of the canoe, and to mark the point where they would be bent. Sometimes the endmost ribs that were to be "broken" at the centerline to form the ~V~-section were split edgewise. A piece of the inner lamina was then cut out to one side of the center so that the inner laminae would lie flat against each other, and to prevent the inner half from buckling the rib was wrapped with a thong to one side of the "break."

TÊTES DE BOULE HUNTING CANOE, 2-FATHOM, with wide bottom, showing structural details.]

It does not appear to have been the common practice of the Têtes de Boule to decorate their small canoes, though when building for white men they would decorate if the buyer requested it.

The paddles used by the Têtes de Boule were somewhat like those of the eastern Cree but the blade was slightly wider near the tip than near the handle. The top grip was formed wide and thin, the taper from the lower grip to the upper one often being very long. The paddles were usually of white birch, but maple was used in a few of the examples examined.

The gunwales, outwales, and caps of the Têtes de Boule canoes were usually of spruce; the ribs and stem pieces, white cedar; the thwarts, white birch; the headboards, white cedar in all but one of the canoes inspected (in this, birch had been used). Jack pine was used also for thwarts, and cedar was sometimes used for the gunwale members; as would be expected, the builders used the materials that were at hand near the building sites.

Têtes de Boule fur-trade canoes, like those of the eastern Cree, appear to have had no relationship to the smaller tribal types, since they were constructed under supervision of white men. They will be discussed as a group on page 135.

_Algonkin_

The Algonkins were a tribe residing on the Ottawa River and its tributaries, in what are now the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, when the French first met them. They appear to have been a large and powerful tribe and were apparently competent builders and users of birch-bark canoes. They were not the same tribe as the Ottawa, who controlled the Lake Huron end of the canoe route between Montreal and Lake Superior, by way of the Ottawa River. These Ottawa were related to the Ojibway tribe and received their name from the French, who gave the name _Outaouais_, or "Ottaway," to all Indians, except the Hurons, who came from the west by way of the Ottawa. The Algonkins, because of their location, were much influenced by the French fur trade. Early in the 18th century they intermingled with certain Iroquois whom they allowed to settle with them, near Montreal, at the Lake of Two Mountains, later Oka. Thence they gradually spread out and lost tribal unity, until only small groups were left. These lived on the Golden Lake Algonkin Reserve, Bonshere River, Ontario; at Oka, Quebec; and elsewhere in western Quebec and eastern Ontario. It is possible that they were the first to build fur-trade canoes for the French, but evidence to support such a claim with any certainty is lacking.

Due to intermixing with other tribal groups and to the influence of the fur trade, in which they were long employed as canoe men and builders, the Algonkins no longer used a single tribal model of canoe. However, one of their models, which had high ends resembling those of the large fur-trade canoe, may have been the tribal type from which the fur-trade canoe was developed, as will be seen.

OLD ALGONKIN CANOE.]

The high-ended model, the oldest form known to have been used by this tribe, was narrow-bottomed, with flaring sides. The canoes seen were built with careful workmanship and in the old manner, without iron fastenings. They were light and easily paddled, yet would carry a heavy load. The ends were sharp at the line of flotation. The bottom was straight to a point near the ends, where it lifted somewhat. The sheer was rather straight over the middle portion of the canoe, then lifted slightly until close to the stem, where it rose sharply, becoming almost perpendicular at the ends of the rail caps. The midsection was slightly rounded across the bottom, with a well-rounded bilge and a gently flaring topside. The cross-section became ~V~-shaped close to the headboards. The most marked feature in the appearance of this canoe was the profile of the ends. The stem line, beginning with a slight angle where it joined the bottom, bent outward in a gentle curve, reaching the perpendicular at a point a little more than half the height of the end, and from there it tumbled home slightly. In most of the canoes examined the top of the stem then rounded inboard in a quick, hard curve, usually almost half a circle, so that the stem was turned downward as it joined the outwale and gunwale cap. In a variation of this stem form, the top of the stem was cut off almost square, forming a straight line that ran parallel to the rise of the bottom below the stems to the point where it would meet the upturned outwale and cap. The ends of the outwales and caps were thus 3 or 4 inches inboard of the extremities. This form of stem, particularly when to top was rounded in a half-circle, approached the basic form of the ends of the fur-trade canoe.

OLD MODEL, OTTAWA RIVER, ALGONKIN CANOE, combining capacity with easy paddling qualities.]

All the examples of this form of canoe that were examined were small, from 14 to a little over 16 feet in length overall, but this is not proof that larger canoes of this type had not existed earlier.

The later and more common form of Algonkin canoe was the _wabinaki chiman_. A corruption of Abnaki, _wabinaki_ to the later Algonkin meant the Malecite as well as the St. Francis Indians. The _wabinaki chiman_ was built in lengths from 12 to 18 feet.

Iroquois living in the Algonkin territory during the period built this form of canoe as well as the older, high-ended form. The _wabinaki chiman_ was very much like the St. Francis and Malecite canoes in appearance, but it was not an exact copy. The Algonkin version was commonly a narrow-bottom canoe with flaring topsides. There was some variation in the end profiles; most had the rather high, peaked ends of the St. Francis canoe. The sheer was rather straight until near the end, where it rose rapidly to the stem. The stem was rounded and was faired into the bottom. The top of the stem was often rather straight and tumbled home slightly, but on some it raked outward, much as did the stem of some Malecite canoes.

Another form of Algonkin canoe had a low sheer with only a slight lift toward the ends. In this canoe the stem might have a short, hard curve at the heel and an upper portion that was quite straight and slightly tumbled home; or the full height might be well rounded, with a slight tumble-home near the stem head.

In appearance these canoes were very like the straight-stem Malecite models. The _wabinaki chiman_ was unquestionably copied from the eastern canoes that came into popularity among the Algonkin late in the 19th century, when white sportsmen were demanding canoes of the St. Francis and Malecite models. However, the Algonkin canoes differed somewhat from the eastern canoes not only in model but also in methods of construction.

ALGONKIN AND OJIBWAY STEM-PIECES, models of old forms made by Adney: 1, 2, 3, Ojibway; 4, 5, 6, 7, Algonkin.]

Algonkins used the same construction methods in both their canoe models, though the framework was not alike in all respects. The building frame was always used. For a 2-or 2½-fathom canoe this was made of two strips of cedar, 1½ inches wide and ¾ inch deep, that were bent edgewise, notched, and tied together at the ends with thongs of the inner bark of the basswood. These strips were held apart in the required shape by cedar crosspieces 1 inch wide and 1¾ inches deep, with the ends notched ¾ inch deep (the depth of the longitudinals) and the tops well rounded. The crosspieces, five in all, were fastened to the longitudinals with thongs passing through holes in the ends. The middle one was about 19½ inches between the inside faces of the longitudinals, those on each side of it were about 15½ inches long by similar measure, and the end ones were nearly 6 inches long and were located a foot or so from the extremities of the longitudinals. The outside width of the building frame amidships would thus be about 22½ or 23 inches.

LIGHT, FAST 2-FATHOM HUNTING CANOE of the old Algonkin model.]

The building bed was level, with a 6-inch-wide board, some 6 to 8 feet in length, sunk into the earth flush with the surface to insure a true line for the bottom. The outside stakes were of the usual sort described in building the Malecite canoe (pp. 40-41). The wedge-shaped inside stakes, or clamp pieces, were 1½ inches wide, 1 inch thick, and 20 to 25 inches long. The posts for setting the height of the gunwales at the ends and at the crosspieces were not cut off square at the top as for the Malecite canoe, but were notched on the outside to take the gunwales. The heights of the posts were graduated, of course, to form the required sheer in the gunwales. Like the canoes of the Têtes de Boule, these of the Algonkin were generally less deep amidships than the general run of eastern canoes.

Building procedure was as follows: The gunwales were made, bent, and the ends fastened, but instead of being mortised and fitted with thwarts, they were spread by temporary crosspieces, or "spalls," made of a splint, or plank-on-edge, with the lower edge notched in two places to take the gunwale members. Sometimes the spalls were lashed, pegged or nailed to the gunwales as well. The stakes were set along the building frame and these were generally driven sloping, so that their heads stood outboard of the points. They were then pulled and laid aside, the building frame was removed, and the bark cover placed on the building bed. After the building frame has been reset in its original position and the bark cover turned up along the sides, the stakes were again driven in their holes. The cover was then pieced out with side panels as necessary and gored, and longitudinal strips of wood were set in place by means of the clamp pieces, about as in Malecite construction. The gunwales were then placed on the posts, which had been set to the required sheer, and the bark trimmed and fitted to them. The old method was to lash the bark to the main gunwale members and to peg on the outwales at intervals of about a foot. In earlier times most builders inserted along the gunwales an extra reinforcing strip of bark extending a little below the outwales, as in the St. Francis canoes, but in the nailed-and-tacked bark canoes built during the decadent period this was sometimes omitted.

HYBRID ALGONKIN CANOES: Eastern 2½ fathom (above) and northeastern 2-fathom adaptation, with sketches of stems used in each.]

Mortises for the thwarts were next cut and the middle thwart was forced into place, after the spall there had been removed. This required that the gunwales be spread slightly, thus increasing the amount of sheer somewhat. Much judgment was needed to do this correctly. The increase in the sheer lifted the ends slightly and put some rocker in the bottom toward the ends. The building frame was lifted out before the rest of the thwarts were placed; usually it was taken apart in the process. In forming the ends of the bark cover, the two sides were held together by a clothespin-like device made of two short, flat sticks lashed together.

Increasing the beam at the gunwales by fitting the thwarts after the bark cover had been secured to the gunwales not only increased the sheer but decreased the depth of the canoe amidships as established by the posts placed under the gunwales in setting up. In order to retain the required sheer and the desired depth of side, the gunwales had been sheered up at the ends while being shaped, and had also been treated with hot water and hogged upward amidships by being staked out to dry into shape. The spreading of the gunwales tended to lift the ends of the bottom line, a condition that was controlled in two ways: the usual one apparently was to employ, in combination with a level bed, a building frame slightly wider than was desired for the finished bottom; the second way was to follow Malecite procedure and elevate slightly the middle of the building bed while employing a building frame the width of the finished bottom. The Algonkin procedure of spreading the gunwales during construction was that employed in the northwest and in the building of the fur-trade canoes, as will be seen. The amount of spread to be given the gunwales also affected the angle, or slope, at which the side stakes were driven on the building bed. Even so, some builders who spread the gunwales a good deal would set the stakes almost vertically, instead of at a slant, as this made sewing the side panels easier, particularly in large canoes and in canoes whose covers were made up of a large number of small pieces of bark.

ALGONKIN, 2-FATHOM HUNTER'S CANOE, without headboards. Details of building frame, stakes or posts, gauge, and stem.]

The gunwales of the Algonkin canoes were made up of three members--main gunwales, outwales, and caps. The main gunwales, usually of cedar, were rectangular in cross section and bent on the flat. The lower outboard corner was bevelled off to take the rib ends, as in the Malecite canoes. The gunwales were rather light ranging in the examples found from about 1 inch square to 1 by 1⅝ inches, the ends being tapered to a lesser size. The outwales were light battens, rectangular in cross-section, about as deep as the main gunwales and about two-thirds their thickness or less; they tapered in depth toward the ends to ⅜ or ½ inch in order to follow the sheer, while the thickness might be constant or only slightly reduced. The caps, which were pegged to the gunwales, were also light and were about equal to the combined width of the main gunwales and outwales and had a depth of about ⅜ to ½ inch amidships. At the ends they were tapered in both width and depth, becoming ½ inch wide and ⅜ inch deep. The amount of taper in the ends of the gunwale members depended upon the form of sheer; the Algonkin practice in the old form of canoe was to sheer the outwales and caps to the top of the stem, while the gunwales sheered less and met the sides of the stem piece at a lower point, as in the drawing (p. 116). In the _wabinaki chiman_, however, the gunwales and other members, as a rule, all followed the sheer of the ends of the canoe.

ALGONKIN CANOE, OLD TYPE.]

The Algonkins used inside stem-pieces in both models, but the stem-piece of the old high-ended canoe was quite different from that of the _wabinaki chiman_, for it was built to give a profile in which the top of the high stem ended in a line straight across to the sheer. The piece consisted of a crooked stick, without lamination, worked out of a thin board, ⅜ to ½ inch thick. It was shaped to the desired profile inside and out, and was slightly sharpened, or sometimes rabbeted and sharpened, toward the outboard face. The headboard was mounted on this stem-piece by means of the usual notch but was not bellied; instead it stood approximately vertical and a short strut was tenoned into both the headboard and the inside face of the stem at a point about half the height of the stem. Sometimes two struts were used, side by side, with the outboard ends lashed at the sides of the stem. Thus the stem-pieces and headboards were placed as a single unit, not independently as in eastern canoes. The gunwale ends were lashed to the sides of the stem-piece, between the strut and the stem-head, at a height determined by the sheering of the main gunwale members. The outwales and caps did not touch the stem-piece, ending with a nearly vertical upward sweep, a few inches inboard. The ends of the outwales and caps were always higher than the top of the stem-piece so that, when the canoe was turned upside down, the bark cover over the stem-head was kept off the ground and thus preserved from damage. The top of the stem-piece was held rigid not only by the strut to the headboard but also by the ends of the main gunwale members lashed to it a little higher up. The headboard was in the form of a rounded ~V~ that was widest at midheight, at the gunwales, which were let into its sides.

When the stem-head was rounded in the style of the fur-trade canoe, the stem-piece except near the heel was split into very thin laminations about ¹⁄₁₆ inch, or a little more, thick. The carefully selected cedar of which these were made was treated with boiling water, then bent to profile; the head was sharply bent over and down, inside the stem, then sharply up again so the end stood at about right angles to the face of the stem at midheight. The headboard was mounted as previously described, except that the end of the stem-piece was inserted into a hole in the headboard just above the strut. The laminations of the stem-piece were wrapped in the normal manner and the lashing was often brought around the strut as well, up against the outboard face of the headboard. The whole structure was thus made rigid and very strong. As in the other form, the main gunwale members did not follow the sheer near the ends of canoe but were secured at a point lower down on the sides of the stem-piece. In the round-head form, however, the outwale and cap ends were fastened on the after face of the stem-head where the laminations were curved downward as illustrated in the drawing (p. 116).

The headboards for both models were thicker than those in the eastern canoes; this aided in holding the stem line in form. Tension on the bark cover was obtained by making the cover ~V~-formed toward the ends and then spreading the sides of the ~V~ with the headboard, thus bringing pressure on the strakes of the sheathing and forcing the sides outward in a slight curve.

The stem-pieces of the _wabinaki chiman_ were either cut out of a thin board or laminated. In the straight-stem form, only the forefoot part was laminated, and no headboard was used. Ordinarily, however, the rigid headboard with a single strut was used. The head of the stem-piece was carried through the rail caps and showed above them; the ends of the caps and main gunwales were notched to permit this, but neither these nor the cap extended outboard of the face of the stem.

ALGONKIN "WABINAKI CHIMAN."]

The bark cover was lashed to the gunwales with group lashings in which the thong was carried from group to group by a long stitch outside the cover, under the outwale. The turns in each group were passed through five or six holes in the cover and reinforcing piece, two turns of the thong going through each hole. The connecting stitch between groups, which were usually about 1½ inches apart, usually passed from the last hole in a group to the second hole in the next. Some builders laid a wooden measuring stick along the gunwales to space the lashings; this was perhaps the practice of many tribal groups.

The lashing of the ends of the cover was passed through the stem pieces; when the latter were not laminated, holes through the soft, thin cedar were made by a sharp awl and an in-and-out or harness stitch was quite commonly used. On laminated stem pieces the form of lashing varied; in the _wabinaki chiman_ it was commonly some combination of spiral and crossed turns; in the old form of high-ended canoe multiple turns through a single hole (usually at the top of the stem-head) were also used in combination with closely spaced long-and-short turns in triangular groups near the top of the stem profile. Below, in the forefoot, spiral or crossed stitches were used. The ends of the outwales were lashed together with a close wrapping of turns in contact where they turned upward sharply, and the caps were secured there by two or more group lashings. The head of the headboard was lashed to each gunwale by passing the thong through holes each side of the headboard; these lashings were in a long group and were passed around gunwale and outwale before the caps were in place. With plank stem-pieces the ends of the bark cover were slightly inboard of the cutwater line, sometimes protected by a rabbet.

The side panels were sewn on with in-and-out stitches, back stitches, or a double line of either. The gores were sewn spirally in the usual manner or were stitched with a closely spaced lacing.

Some of the old Algonkin canoes examined had what appeared to be a _wulegessis_ just outboard of the headboards. No marking was found on these and they were too far aft to protect the ends of the gunwales. The bark was carried across the gunwales, under the caps, and hung down a little below the outwales. On top, it reached from the headboard out to the lashings of the outwales, forming between the headboards and the lashings a short deck that may have been intended to keep dirt and water out of the ends of the canoe. Sometimes a modern _wabinaki chiman_ has a _wulegessis_, copying the Eastern practice but without markings.

ALGONKIN CANOE DECORATIONS by Tommy Sersin (or Serzia), Golden Lake, Ont., showing four sides of stems of one canoe. Indian shown has the eastern headdress rather than that of the Plains Indian. Moose, bear, beaver, and goose are shown. (_Sketches by Adney._)]

The thwarts were of various designs; a common one had parallel sides in plan. The old canoes had thwarts much like those of the Têtes de Boule. The end lashings of these were usually passed through three holes in the thwart ends, but some had only two holes.

Sheathing was laid somewhat as in the Têtes-de-Boule canoe, with overlapping edges and butts. The end sheathing was short and was laid first; the centerline strake was parallel-sided to a point near the sharp end of the canoe. The strakes on each side of it were tapered and were laid with their wide ends toward the middle of the canoe and with the sides and narrow end lapped. In the middle of the canoe the strakes were parallel-sided and their butts were on top of those of the strakes in the end of the canoe. The sheathing was carried up to within about three inches of the gunwales. The edges were not thinned or feathered as much as were those in the Têtes de Boule canoe.

Ribs were of cedar from 2 to 3 inches wide, closely spaced and, as usual, without taper until near the ends, which were formed with a narrow chisel edge as in the Têtes-de-Boule canoe. The ribs were first roughly bent, using the building frame as a general guide for length, in order to obtain a somewhat dish-shaped cross section; by this means the width of the bottom could be established to the builder's satisfaction.

The foregoing description of building methods and construction is based largely upon what is known of the old canoes. In later times the Algonkin copied the eastern canoes and their procedure altered. Not only did they copy extensively the appearance of the St. Francis and Malecite canoes, but they built some canoes much like those of the Têtes de Boule and Ojibway. As a result, it has become difficult to determine what their tribal practices were.

Their paddles were of the same design as those of the Têtes de Boule, round-pointed and with the blade parallel-sided for most of its length. In portaging, the Algonkin, like many forest Indians, placed a pair of paddles a foot or so apart fore-and-aft over the middle thwart and those on each side of it. These were lashed in place with the ends of a band of hide or the inner bark of a tree like the basswood or elm. This band had been first passed around the ends of the middle thwart, outside the shoulders, and hitched with ends long enough to secure the paddles in place. The shoulder on the middle, thwart, a few inches inside the gunwales, was placed there for just this purpose, not as a mere decoration, so that the line could not slide in along the thwart. The canoe was then lifted and turned over by raising one end, or by lifting the whole canoe, and was placed on the carrier's shoulders, so that the paddle handles were on his shoulders. This brought the middle thwart to just behind the carrier's head. The loop of the bark or hide cord was then placed around the forehead of the carrier in order to keep the canoe from slipping backward. In this fashion one man could carry a canoe for miles if the canoe were small--and all woods, or portage, canoes were small and light. The headband was known to white men as a "tump line." The Indians used it to carry not only canoes but other heavy or awkward loads (see p. 25).

There is no certainty about the decorations of Algonkin canoes. Some of the older Indians claimed that the old form of canoe was often decorated with figures formed by scraping the winter bark; usually these depicted the game the owner hunted. Five-pointed stars, fish, and circular forms are known to have been used on the _wabinaki chiman_, but it is not known whether these were really Algonkin decorations or merely something that had been copied "because it looked good."

The Algonkin called the large fur canoes _nabiska_, a name which the Têtes de Boule rendered as _rabeska_. The word may be a corruption of the Cree word for "strong." At any rate, the name _rabeska_ (sometimes pronounced ra-bas-ha), rather than the French maître canot, was long applied by white men in the fur trade to the large canoes built in the Ottawa River Valley for their business. In late years the rabeska was a "large" 2½-fathom high-ended birch-bark canoe, but originally it meant a fur-trade canoe, with the characteristic ends, of from 3 fathoms upward in length.

_Ojibway_

The Indian bands that were called "_Outaouais_" by the early French do not appear to have been an independent tribe, as has been mentioned, but were largely made up of Ojibway from the Great Lakes region. Perhaps some Têtes de Boule were among these bands before these people were given their nickname. The Ojibway were a powerful tribal group, made up of far-ranging bands, located all around Lake Superior and to the northwest as far as Lake Winnipeg. They had been in the process of taking over the western end of Lake Superior when the earliest French explorers reached that area; they pushed the Sioux from these forest lands into the plains area, joining with the western Cree in this movement. In the process they seem to have absorbed both some Sioux and some Cree bands. Within the Ojibway tribal group, later called Chippewa or Chippeway by the English and Americans, the bands had local names, or were given nicknames, such as the Menominee, Saltreaux, Pillagers, etc. All the important bands within the tribal group were expert canoemen and builders. As far as can be discovered now, the Ojibway added to their own tribal types the models of canoes they encountered in their expansion westward. It has long been true that the Ojibway canoe can be one of at least three forms, depending upon which area of their territory is being discussed.

What is believed to be their old tribal form was a high-ended canoe in all respects very much like the high-ended Algonkin type. This was the model used by the Lake Nipigon Ojibway, north of Lake Superior in Ontario, and by those of the same tribe that once lived near Saginaw, Michigan, as well as by the Menominee of Wisconsin. At the late period, from the middle of the 19th century onward, for which information was available or in which investigation was possible, it appears that the Ojibway canoes of this high-ended model were built in larger sizes than contemporary Algonkin canoes of like design. The Ojibway canoes had the same end structure as these; the early examples found had "chin" in the end profiles and the tumble-home of the stem was straight, or nearly so, between the large curve of the forefoot and the very short hard curve at the stem head. The Ojibway used the same inner stem-piece, laminated and brought downward abaft the stem-head and then inboard so that the end fitted into a slot in the headboard a little above its midheight, at which point was fitted a strut from the headboard to the back of the stem-piece. The midsection of the Ojibway canoe was very much like that of the Algonkin; it had a narrow bottom somewhat rounded athwartships, a well-rounded bilge, and flaring topsides.

A small Ojibway portage canoe built in the middle of the 19th century had an end profile somewhat different from that described above; the ends were well rounded and had a heavy chin, the stem was carried into the tumble-home with a full rounded curve all the way to the stem-head, where the stem piece was bent in and downward very sharply and then inboard sharply again, so that the end pierced the vertical headboard at sheer height. The ~S~-curve was so located that the main gunwales could be lashed to the stem piece at the point where they paralleled it well below the stem head. In these canoes the Ojibway followed Algonkin practice in ending the gunwales; there was, therefore, no strut. Where this canoe was built is uncertain.

OJIBWAY 2-FATHOM HUNTER'S CANOE, used by the eastern tribal groups. Probably the ancient model.]

EXAMPLES OF THE OLD MODEL OJIBWAY 3-FATHOM rice-harvesting canoe (above), and 2-fathom hunter's canoe, showing the easy paddling form used.]

OJIBWAY 3-FATHOM FREIGHT CANOE FROM LAKE TIMAGAMI, apparently a hybrid based on canvas canoes.]

THE OLD FORM OF OJIBWAY 2½-FATHOM CANOE of the eastern groups (above), and the long-nose Cree-Ojibway canoe of the western groups.]

At Lake Timagami, north of Georgian Bay in Ontario, the Ojibway used a low-ended canoe with a remarkably straight tumble-home stem profile; the forefoot had a very short radius ending at the bottom line with a knuckle, and the stem-head stood slightly above the gunwale caps. The stem-piece was made from a thin plank cut to profile; thus no lamination was necessary. The headboard stood straight, falling inboard slightly at the head. The midsection was dish-shaped, with a flat bottom athwartships and strongly flaring sides, the turn of the bilge being rather abrupt. The ends were strongly ~V~-shaped in cross-section; a number of the frames there being "broken" at the centerline of the bottom. A canoe of this design was seen by Adney at North Bay, Ontario, in 1925, indicating that the design may have been used in some degree outside the Lake area in later years.

The most common Ojibway model used to the northwest and west of Lake Superior was the so-called "long-nose" form, a rather straight-sheered canoe. The bottom, near the ends, had a slight rocker, and the sheer turned up very sharply there, becoming almost perpendicular at the extremities, yet the ends were not proportionally very high. The end-profile came up from the bottom very full and round, then fell sharply inboard in a slightly rounded sweep to join the upturned sheer well inboard. The midsection was somewhat dish-shaped, but with well-rounded bilges, so that the flare of the topsides was rounded and not very apparent to the casual observer. The end section developed into a tumble-home form, so that a section through the top of the headboard was rather oval. As a result, these canoes appeared rather clumsy and unfair in their lines, but this apparently did not harm their paddling qualities or seaworthiness.

EASTERN OJIBWAY CANOE, OLD FORM. (_Canadian Pacific Railway photo._)]

OJIBWAY LONG-NOSE CANOE, RAINY LAKE DISTRICT.]

These canoes had narrow headboards that were sharply bellied, somewhat like those in the crooked canoes, and the belly was sufficient to allow the heel of the end-board to pass under the bottom sheathing and inside the bark cover so that two end ribs served to hold the heel in place. The inside stem-piece was often no more than a light stick or rod bent to profile, with the head split and brought over the gunwale ends and down inside, between them. Each half of the split was then lashed to its neighboring gunwale member. A strip of bark was often placed over the end of the bark cover and carried down the face of the stem, under the sewing. The rail caps were then brought up over the tops of the gunwales and overlapped the top portion of the stem piece. The heel of the stem-piece was bevelled off on the inboard side so that it could be wedged under the headboard, inside the bark cover. These headboards, it should be noted, were no more than a thin, narrow batten, and in some canoes the head of this batten was lashed under the gunwale ends instead of coming up between them inboard, as usual. A variation in the fitting of the stem head was found in a canoe at Long Lake, Ontario; the stem head, instead of being split, was lashed between the gunwale ends and thus was brought inboard level with the top of the gunwales.

SMALL OJIBWAY CANOES OF THE TWO TRIBAL FORMS showing (above) early trend toward the long nose form, and the final Ojibway-Cree hybrid form combining flaring sides amidships with tumble-home sections at ends.]

The cross section of the main gunwales was round or nearly so in nearly all long-nose canoes, and often a gunwale cap was fitted. The bark cover was secured to the gunwales by a continuous lashing, but in at least one example, from Minnesota, the gunwale wrappings were in groups over an outwale after the regular fashion to the eastward. The ends of the thwarts were wedge-or chisel-shaped and instead of being tenoned were forced into splits in the round gunwales. Many canoes had bark covers at the gunwale ends and vestiges of the _wulegessis_ were to be seen.

All Ojibway canoes were built with a building frame, the bed being slightly higher at midlength than at the ends. The stakes were driven nearly perpendicular, instead of with heads slanted outward. It is apparent from observed examples that some canoes were built by the same procedure as the Algonkin, but that not all the long-nose canoes were built by spreading the gunwales; some were built using the methods of the St. Francis.

OJIBWAY CANOE BUILDING, LAC SEUL, 1918.

Preparing a building site or bed; building frame in place.

Bark set up; bark staked out on building bed.

Bark cover being sewn on building bed.

(See pp. 170-171 for more photos of Ojibway canoe building.) Gunwales being lashed.

Securing gunwales.

Pitch being applied to seams.]

LONG LAKE OJIBWAY LONG-NOSE CANOE. (_Canadian Geological Survey photo._)]

The lashing in the high-ended Ojibway canoes was about the same as that in the Algonkin canoes, but in the long-nose type the workmanship was often coarse. On many of the latter the stems were lashed by use of small groups in which two turns were taken through each of two closely spaced holes in the bark and the connection between the groups was made by a long spiral around the outside of the stem. This pattern was carried down from the stem-head to about the level of the midship sheer height; from there down around the forefoot the lashing consisted of a simple spiral. Another style was to use widely spaced groups made up of two or three turns through a pair of facing holes in the bark, one on each side and inboard of the stem. The turn went around the stem, and the last connected with the next pair of holes below. A few canoes of this style used closely spaced wrapping, as in the high-ended canoes.

The long-nose Ojibway canoe is surprisingly primitive by comparison with the graceful and well-finished high-ended model built after the Algonkin style. Adney believed that the long-nose type originated with the Sioux Dakotas, before the combined Ojibway and Cree movement forced them out of the forest lands to the west of Lake Superior. He considered it possible that both the Ojibway and Cree adapted the Dakota model, modifying it somewhat to their methods of construction. It is true that the western Cree built a long-nose canoe, but it had less chin than the Ojibway model. On the other hand, the Ojibway prebent ribs in pairs like the eastern Cree, and used spreaders in the end ribs while drying them, in exactly the same manner. A picture taken in 1916 shows the gunwales of a Cree long-nose canoe being set; it was laid on the ground and weighted along the midlength by stones laid on boards placed across the longitudinals. The ends had been sheered up and were supported at each end by a thong made fast to the gunwale end and then brought over a post, or strut, a few feet inboard and made fast to the middle thwart.

It is unnecessary to detail the construction of the Ojibway canoes, as they employed a building-frame, as the drawings on pages 123 to 127 show plainly enough the pertinent details of fitting and construction. It is important to observe that the wide variation in model and in construction details of the Ojibway canoes produced a variety of building procedures that in the main were like those of the Algonkin and Cree. Hence the older tribal method of construction cannot now be stated with any accuracy.

The paddle forms used by the Ojibway groups varied somewhat. Most were made with parallel-sided blades and oval tips. The hand grip at the top of the handle was rectangular and was large in comparison to the grip of the eastern Cree paddles. A few variations have been noticed; the blade of one was widest at the top, the tip was almost squared off, and the upper hand grip was much as in the factory paddle of today. This paddle, from an unknown locality, was used in 1849.

As in the case of the Algonkin, the eastern Ojibway built fur-trade canoes under supervision. Though these canoes differed somewhat from those built by the Algonkins, it is now impossible to say whether or not there was any real relationship between them and the small, high-ended "old-form" canoe. Likewise, the Ojibway built a version of the _wabinaki chiman_ which seems to have influenced some types of their own, such as, for instance, the straight-stem Lake Temagami canoe.

NINETEEN-FOOT OJIBWAY CANOE with thirteen Indians aboard (1913).]

_Western Cree_

The western portion of the great Cree tribe appear to have occupied the western shore of James Bay and to have moved gradually northwestward in historical times. Their territory included the northern portion of Ontario and northern Manitoba north of Lake Winnipeg, and as early as 1800 they had entered northwestern Alberta. The line of division between the canoes of the eastern and western Cree cannot be strictly determined, but it is roughly the Missinaibi River, which, with the Abitibi River, empties into the head of James Bay at the old post of Moose Factory. The southern range of the Cree model was only a little way south of the head of James Bay, irregularly westward in line with Lake St. Joseph to Lake Winnipeg. To the west, the Cree type of canoe gradually spread until it met the canoe forms of the Athabascan in the Northwest Territories, in the vicinity of Lake Athabaska in northwestern Saskatchewan.

The canoes of the western Cree, as has been noted, strongly resembled the long-nose Ojibway model except that they had less pronounced chin. But unlike those of the eastern Cree, their canoes employed an inside stem-piece that was sometimes a laminated piece and sometimes a piece of spruce root. The stem head was commonly bent sharply and secured between the gunwale ends at the point where the two longitudinals were fastened together, much as in some Ojibway long-nose canoes. The Cree canoe had basically the same dish-shaped midsection, but it had very full, round bilges and the flare was so curved in the topside that it was even less apparent than in the Ojibway model. The shorter chin of the Cree canoe also made tumble-home in the end sections unnecessary, and cross section near the headboards was given the form of a slightly rounded ~U~.

The bottom had very little rocker at the ends, being straight for practically the whole length. The stem-piece if laminated (often in only two or three laminations) came up from the bottom in a fair round forefoot and then tumbled in by a gentle curve to the stem-head, where it was bent sharply to pass down between the gunwale ends as previously noted. But if the stem-piece was of spruce root, the profile was often somewhat irregular and the chin was more pronounced. In a common style the stem came fair out of the bottom in a quick hard curve, then curved outward slightly until the height of the least freeboard amidships was reached, at which height another hard turn began the tumble-home in a gentle sweep to the stem-head, where there was a very hard turn downward. The stem-head was often split, as in some Ojibway canoes, so that it came over the joined ends of the main gunwales and the two halves were then lashed to the inside faces of the gunwales.

Birch bark was often poor or scarce in the territory of the western Cree, as in that of their eastern brothers. As a substitute, they employed spruce bark and in general seem to have achieved better results, for their spruce-bark canoes had a neater appearance. If the canoe was built when or where root material was difficult to obtain, the western Cree used rawhide for sewing the bark cover. When the stems were lashed with rawhide, a stem-band of bark under the lashing was common.

The gunwales were round in cross section and were often spliced amidships. The bark cover was lashed to these with a continuous lashing, no caps or outwales being employed. As in the Ojibway long-nose canoe, the headboards were very narrow and much bellied. These canoes were built with four or five thwarts; the 4-thwart type was used for gathering wild rice, as was the Ojibway type, while the 5-thwart canoe was the portage model. The thwarts were sometimes mortised into the gunwales, but some builders made the thwart ends chisel-pointed and drove them into short splits in the gunwales before lashing them, one or two holes being drilled in the thwart ends to take the lashing thongs. When the thwarts were tenoned into the gunwales, the builders of course made the inside of the gunwales flat.

When spruce bark was employed, its greater stiffness made it possible to space the ribs as much as 10 inches on centers, but with birch the spacing was about 1 inch, edge to edge. The sheathing was in short splints and the inside of the canoe was "shingled" or covered irregularly without regard to lining off the strakes, a practice sometimes observed in Ojibway long-nose canoes. The much-bellied and narrow headboards were fitted as in the long-nose canoe, and the heel was secured under a piece of sheathing and held by it and the first two ribs.

Western Cree canoes were built with a building frame, and the bed was raised in the middle. The sewing varied. The ends were lashed with combinations of close-wrapped turns, crossed turns, grouped, and spiral turns; the lashing commonly went around the inside stem piece rather than through it. Side panels were sewn with in-and-out stitches or back stitches, and the gores with the usual spiral. Gumming as a rule was done with clear spruce gum tempered by repeated meltings.

WESTERN CREE 2½-FATHOM CANOE, Winisk River District, northwest of James Bay. Built of either birch or spruce bark. Inside root stem piece, round gunwales, and much-bellied headboard are typical.]

The woodwork varied with the building site; some builders could use much cedar, but spruce was most common and the thwarts were usually of birch. When spruce bark was used it was never employed in a single large sheet, since it would have been impossible to mold it to the required shape. Hence the bark cover was pieced up, whether birch or spruce, as an aid in molding the form. Before the spruce bark was sewed and gummed, the edges of the pieces had to be thinned to make a neat joint. Furthermore, in the continuous lashing it was desirable to take two or three turns through one hole in the bark cover to avoid weakening the material with closely spaced holes.

The western Cree paddles had parallel-sided blades with rounded tips; the handle sometimes had a ball-shaped top grip and sometimes it was pole-ended. The blade did not have a ridge on its face near the handle. Old Cree paddles were often decorated with red pigment bands, markings in the shape of crosses, squares in series, and dots on the blades; the top grip might also be painted.

Many tribal groups in the western portion of the area have been mentioned--Teton, Sioux, Assiniboine, Illinois, Huron, and many others--but no record of their canoe forms has survived and the assigning of any model to them is pure speculation. The fur trade alone brought about a period of tribal movement among the Indians long enough to erase many tribal distinctions in canoes and to cause types to move great distances.

AN OLD 6-FATHOM FUR-TRADE CANOE, or "rabeska," used on the Montreal-Great Lakes run. Also called the Iroquois canoe, it approximates the canoes built for the French, at the Trois Rivières, Que., factory and is of the style used by the North West and Hudson's Bay Companies.]

_Fur-Trade Canoes_

Of all birch-bark canoe forms, the most famous were the _canots du maître_, or _maître canots_ (also called north canoes, great canoes, or _rabeskas_), of the great fur companies of Canada. These large canoes were developed early, as we have seen in the French colonial records, and remained a vital part of the fur trade until well toward the very end of the 19th century--two hundred years of use and development at the very least. A comprehensive history of the Canadian and American fur trade is yet to be written; when one appears it will show that the fur trade could not have existed on a large scale without the great _maître canot_ of birch bark. It will also have to show that the early exploration of the north country was largely made possible by this carrier. In fact, the great canoes of the Canadian fur trade must be looked upon as the national watercraft type, historically, of Canada and far more representative of the great years of national expansion than the wagon, truck, locomotive, or steamship.

Little has survived concerning the form and construction of the early French-colonial fur-trade canoes. Circumstantial evidence leads to the conclusion that the model was a development, an enlargement perhaps, of the Algonkin form of high-ended canoe as described on pages 113 to 116. The early French came into contact with these tribesmen before they met the Great Lakes Ojibway, the other builders of the high-ended model. It is known that the Indians first supplied large canoes to the French governmental and church authorities and that when this source of canoes proved insufficient, the canoe factory at Trois Rivières was set up and a standard size (probably a standard model as well) came into existence. As the fur trade expanded, large canoes may well have been built elsewhere by the early French; we know at least that building spread westward and northward after Canada became a British possession.

In the rise of the great canoe of the fur trade, the basic model was no doubt maintained through the method of training its builders. The first French engaged in bark-canoe building learned the techniques, let us say, from the original Indian builders, the Algonkin. As building moved westward, the first men sent to the new posts to build canoes apparently came from the French-operated canoe factory. It would be reasonable to expect that as building increased in the west, local modifications would be patterned on canoes from around the building post, but that the basic model would remain. This may account for the departures from the true Ojibway-Algonkin canoes seen in the _maître canots_.

INBOARD PROFILE OF A 6-FATHOM FUR-TRADE CANOE, and details of construction, fitting, and decoration.]

SMALL 3-FATHOM NORTH CANOE of the Têtes de Boule model. Built in the 19th century for fast travel, this Hudson's Bay Company canoe was also called nadowé chiman, or Iroquois canoe.]