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. [Illustration: Figure 125 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.