The Micmac Indians appear to have occupied the Gaspé Peninsula, most of the north shore of New Brunswick and nearly all the shores of the Bay of Fundy as well as all of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Cape Breton. They may have also occupied much of southern and central New Brunswick as well, but if so they had been driven from these sections by the Malecites before the white men came. The Micmacs were known to the early French invaders under a variety of names; "Gaspesians," "Canadiens," "Sourikois," or "Souriquois," while the English colonists of New England called them merely "Eastern Indians." The name Micmac is said to mean "allies" and not known, but this name was in use early in the 18th century, if not before 1700. The Micmac were a hunting people with warlike characteristics; they aided the Malecite and other New England Indians in warfare against the early New England colonists and in later times aided the French against the English in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. These Indians lived in an area where water transport represented the easiest method of travel and so they became expert builders and users of birch-bark canoes, which they employed in hunting, fishing, general travel, and warfare. The area in which they lived produced fine birch bark and suitable wood for the framework. Through experience, they had become able to design canoes for specific purposes and had produced a variety of models and sizes. The hunting canoe was the smallest, being usually somewhere between 9 and 14 feet long, with an occasional canoe as long as 15 feet. This light craft, known as a "woods canoe" and sometimes as a "portage canoe," was intended for navigating very small streams and for portaging. Another model, the "big-river canoe," somewhat longer than the woods canoe, was usually between 15 and 20 feet long. A third model, the "open water canoe," was for hunting seal and porpoise in salt water and ranged from about 18 feet to a little over 24 feet in length. The fourth model, the "war canoe," about which little is known, appears to have been built in either the "big-river" or "open-water" form, and to the same length, but sharper and with less beam so as to be faster.