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
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.
[Illustration: Figure 105
OLD ALGONKIN CANOE.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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