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 ends of the Eskimo-built canoes of the lower Yukon had a short
rake, the heel of the end profile breaking out of the bottom line at
a slight angle and sweeping upward and outward in a gentle curve,
often becoming almost straight near the stem head. The bow and stern
were nearly the same height, the bow being a little higher, about half
the midship depth above the sheer amidships. The sheer at each end
was almost dead straight until within a few inches of the end; thence
it swept up sharply with the inner gunwale ends, broadened, resting
on the inboard side of the stem piece. The extreme ends of the inner
gunwales were thus at the extreme stem-head. The stem-pieces were of
plank, the cutwater portion outside the bark cover being sharpened
the full height of the stems. These lower Yukon canoes had three side
battens above the chine piece, but not all ran the full length in one
piece; some were in two, in which case the ends merely ran past one
another for a few rib-spaces and were neither butted nor lapped. The
forward deck extended nearly one-third the canoe's length and had a
batten across the inboard deck-end; the after deck reached to the after
thwart. Adney's model of such a canoe shows the after deck lashed to
the gunwales with spiral turns over a batten along the deck edges and
finished toward the stern with chain stitching, but no such arrangement
was seen in any full-sized canoe.
The form of these Eskimo-built canoes was nearly that of a double-ended
flat-bottom skiff; the bottom being flat athwartships and without
rocker fore-and-aft. The sides flared and were nearly straight. The
turn of the bilge was quite sharp, the chine having a very short
radius. In plan, the canoe showed no hollow in the ends, which were
convex both at gunwale and on the bottom frame. In some of the
full-sized canoes inspected there appeared to be a slight hog ranging
from ¼ to ⅜ inch in the bottom, but there was no evidence to suggest
that this was a result of the drying and shrinkage of the canoe
structure with age. Hearne's drawing of a kayak-form canoe shows an
impossible amount of hog in the bottom, and he indicates that some hog
was intentional in building. This would disappear when the canoe was
loaded afloat owing to the light and flexible structure, and it is
evident that the builders usually sought to have the bottom slightly
hogged.
[Illustration: Figure 152
CONSTRUCTION OF KAYAK-FORM CANOE of the lower Yukon, showing rigid
bottom frame. (_Smithsonian Institution photo._)]
The kayak-form canoes of the lower Yukon and neighboring streams all
appear to have been small canoes "tailored" to their owner's weight
and height: 14 to 15 feet in overall length, 2 to 2¼ feet wide, and
10 to 12 inches deep. The bottom frame was from 12 to 14 inches wide
amidships.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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