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 canoe can now be raised from the building bed. To set it up at a
most convenient working height, the weights are first removed from the
gunwales and the remaining stakes are pulled up. The canoe is then
lifted from its bed and turned upside down over a couple of logs, or
crude horses. Traditionally, logs or sapling were rested across two
pairs of boulders or the logs were tied between two pairs of trees at
convenient distances apart. More recently, horses, formed by sticking
four legs into auger holes drilled in the bottom of a 4-foot length
of timber, were used. After the canoe is on its supports the ends are
ready to be closed in.
The stem-pieces customarily used by the Malecite builder are formed
from two clear white cedar billets a full 36 inches long and in the
rough nearly 1½ inches square. The billets are first shaped so that
the outboard face of each stem-piece is about ¾ inch wide, making it
a truncated triangle in cross-section. Then, along lines parallel to
the base of the truncated triangle, it is split into six laminations
which are carried to within 6 or 7 inches of the end selected to be the
heel of the stem-piece. Just clear of the laminations a notch is cut
into the top side of the heel, to hold the headboard, as will be seen.
The piece is then treated with boiling water until the laminations are
flexible, and the curve of the stem-piece can be formed and either
pegged out or tied with cords until it dries in the desired shape.
When dry the laminations are tightly wrapped with basswood bark cord,
leaving the form of the stem-piece a quarter arc of a circle, with
short tangents at each end, as shown in the illustration (p. 35).
[Illustration: Figure 42
FIFTH STAGE OF CANOE CONSTRUCTION: canoe is removed from building bed
and set on horse in order to shape ends and complete sewing. Bark cover
has dried out in a flat-bottomed and wall-sided form. (_Sketch by
Adney._)]
Next, the ends of the outwales are cut to a length determined by the
quality of the bark already in place; if the bark in one end is not
very good, it may be cut away somewhat and the canoe made shorter by
this amount at both ends in finishing. After the ends of the outwales
have been cut, both are notched on the inside at the extreme ends to
take the head of the stem-piece. The outwales may or may not project
¼ or ½ inch beyond the stem and the stem head may project ½ or 1 inch
above the top of the outwales of the canoe; these matters, at the
builder's option, decide the length of the notch and the fitting of the
stem-pieces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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