The birch in most of the Northwest is a small tree and the bark is of poor quality for canoe building; hence, in many areas spruce bark was commonly employed in its place; a single tribal group might build its canoes of either, depending upon what was available near the building site. However, near the Alaska coast, where kayak-form bark canoes were used and good birch was usually not available, some tribes used seal or other skins as a substitute. In the framework spruce and fir were most commonly employed, but occasionally cedar was available and was used. The canoe-building Indians in northwestern Canada were mostly of the Athabascan family and included the Chipewyan or "Chipewans," the Slave or "Slavey" (= Etchareottine), the Beaver (= Tsattine), the Dogrib (= Thlingchadinne), the Tanana (= Tenankutchin), the Loucheux, the Hare (= Kawchodinne), and others. Some of these tribal groups built not only bark canoes but also dugouts. There were also some Eskimo people who built bark canoes for river service, as well as skin canoes, on the same model as the bark kayak-form. In the vicinities of Lake Athabasca and Great Slave Lake, the Chipewyan employed not only their own models of canoes but also that of the western Cree. The latter had invaded Chipewyan territory before the arrival of the first white men in the Northwest and undoubtedly had influenced canoe-building technique during the long period of the fur trade that followed. It is therefore not possible to say where the influence of Chipewyan building techniques ends and that of the Cree and the eastern Indians, as introduced through the fur-trade canoes, begins. This raises the question whether the high-ended Athabascan canoe is itself the result of influence. One may infer from Samuel Hearne's description of his travels in this area, in his _Journey ... to the Northern Ocean_,[1] that only the kayak-form then existed, for this type is the only one he describes, and he describes it in great detail. However, Alexander Mackenzie, in an entry in his journal for June 23, 1789, refers to the "large canoe" in a manner indicating that it was a local type. It may well be that then, as later, the kayak-form and cargo canoe existed side by side, or it may be that Mackenzie was referring to a large kayak-form canoe like the family canoe of the Alaska Yukon Indians. Perhaps the reason that Hearne did not mention the "large canoe" is that the people he met on his way to the Coppermine River, and on his way back by way of Lake Athabasca to Hudson Bay, did not then use canoes of the second model. [1] See bibliography. [Illustration: Figure 144 CHIPEWYAN 2-FATHOM hunter's canoe (top), with bent stem piece, and Athabascan 2½-fathom canoe with plank stem piece. Plank and bent stem pieces were both employed in Athabascan canoes. Spruce or birch bark were used without alteration of the design or basic construction methods.] _Narrow-Bottom Canoe_