Where large sheets of bark were available, the setting up with the building frame or gunwale was made easier than where the bark had to be pieced out for both length and width. If large pieces of bark could be obtained there was little or no sewing on the bottom; only the gores or laps, and the panels, in the side required attention after the bark had been lashed to the gunwales. In such instances, the set-up did not require perpendicular sides, as the sides could be completed after the canoe was removed from the building bed and the building frame had been removed from the hull. There were many minor variations in the set-up and in the sequence of the sewing. In view of the slight opportunities that now exist for examining the old building methods and construction sequences, it is impossible to be certain that the one used by a tribe in recent times was that employed in prehistoric times by their ancestors. Instead of a laminated stem-piece, a large root whittled to the desired cross section was sometimes used by builders among the Malecites and other eastern tribes. This was bent into the ends while green and to it was lashed the bark, so that the stem dried in place to the desired profile curve. No inner stem-piece was used by the Micmacs, who formed the end structure by placing a split-root batten on each outside face of the bark and passing the lashing around both. When a plank-on-edge was used to form the stem-piece, as mentioned earlier, no headboard was required, as the gunwales ends could be brought to the plank structure. In canoes having the complicated stem structure seen in the large fur-trade canoes and some others, the headboard became an integral part of the stem structure, rather than an independent unit, and was placed in the canoe during building with the stem-pieces.