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 end profile varied with the tribe of the builder. Chipewyan canoes
had a very long end profile fore-and-aft; the heel was angular, and the
outline of the stem then swept forward in an easy curve to a height
about two-thirds the depth of the canoe amidships, then began to tumble
in a little, the curve becoming gradually sharper until the head was
reached. The stem-head in its fore-and-aft length was almost one third
the height of the ends and was roughly parallel to the bottom of the
canoe directly beneath it. Because of the rocker of the bottom, the
after end of the head was thus lower than the fore end. The sheer
was faired up to the after end of the head in a short, quick curve.
Usually the outwales were cut off short of this point, but in some
canoes they were brought up along with the inwales to the stem-head.
Wedges were used in making up the gunwale-end lashings in both the
Chipewyan and Dogrib canoes; these served to tighten the lashings and
formed a sort of breasthook. In a few examples of the Athabascan type,
the stem-pieces were of cedar root without lamination; this use of
the roots enabled the angular form of the plank-on-edge stems to be
retained. It cannot be determined whether the root stem-pieces were
part of the old Athabascan technique or were an importation from the
western Cree. The lashing in these canoes followed the forms used
in the fur-trade canoes--long-and-short turns in groups generally
triangular in shape, with a spiral turn between groups.
[Illustration: Figure 146
PLANK-STEM CANOES OF HYBRID FORMS, 3-FATHOM Slavey (top) and 2½-fathom
Algonkin-type Athabascan, probably the results of the influence of
fur-trade canoe-building.]
The canoes of the Dogrib were practically identical with those of the
Chipewyan except that the end profiles were usually slightly deeper
fore-and-aft; also the Dogrib canoes were perhaps more often of birch
bark, judging from the remaining canoes and models. The form of the
ends in the Dogrib canoes was such that they often appeared higher than
they really were, as the stem-heads stood some distance above the ends
of the sheer, an effect which was heightened by the small fore-and-aft
depth of the stem-heads.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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