The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North AmericaChapelle, Howard Irving
History
The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America
Chapelle, Howard Irving
Canoes and canoeing -- North America; Indians of North America -- Boats; Skin boats -- North America
At the time (1908) when Adney was carefully observing the canoes
in this area he found that both crooked and straight-bottom canoes
were being used by all three tribal groups, but with a variation in
midsection form among individual builders. Both types were built with
a midsection that had a wide bottom and vertical sides, or, as an
alternative, a narrow bottom and flaring sides. The end profile of
all these canoes showed chin. In some crooked canoes the profile was
apparently an arc of a circle, but in most canoes the form was an
irregular curve. The stem met the gunwale in a marked peak rounded very
slightly at the head, as the result of the method by which the stem
was constructed, but in the hybrid model used by the Nascapee the ends
were low and not much peaked and the quick upward rise of the sheer
near the ends was lacking. In cross section all these canoes became
~V~-shaped close to the ends, regardless of the midsection form. For
the straight-bottom canoe and in the hybrid form this resulted in very
sharp level lines, but the very great rocker of the crooked canoe
brought the ends well above the normal line of flotation, so that this
type was quite full-ended at the level line in spite of the ~V~-section.
It is apparent upon examining the crooked canoe that there was actually
less variation in its form, in spite of differences in midsection
shape, than in that of the straight-bottom canoe, owing to its very
great depth amidships in proportion to its width. This proportion
made necessary a very moderate flare in the narrow-bottom midsection
and resulted in a rather wall-sided appearance, even in this model.
The hybrid form, which fell between the extremes of the crooked canoe
and the straight-bottom canoe, had a narrow-bottomed flaring-sided
midsection, and its relatively moderate depth made obvious the flare in
the topsides and thus created a distinctive model.
[Illustration: Figure 89
BIRCH-BARK CROOKED CANOE, UNGAVA CREE. (_Smithsonian Institution
photo._)]
_Eastern Cree_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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