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
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.
[Illustration: Figure 106
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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