The bark canoes which the Indians of North America employed on the great rivers and lakes when white men first went there are unchanged in their method of construction, and though in places where civilisation and the mechanical arts have assumed sway the old canoes have given way to the products of the modern boat-builders’ skill, yet in the farther North-West the Indian canoe ripples the summer surface of the lakes and streams as it did centuries ago. The real Indian canoes were made by building the frame, and then placing upon it a carefully prepared strip of birch bark sufficiently large to cover the entire frame in one piece; it was lashed to the frame and then stitched at the ends to form the bow and stern. The larger canoes were sometimes stiffened by having two or three pieces of wood lashed thwartwise. The canoes were propelled by means of paddles, and the Indians sat or knelt on the bottom of the boat. Many of these canoes weighed as little as 60 lb. and some even less. Their chief use was in the migrations of the tribes between their summer and winter quarters, and very picturesque they must have appeared to the early settlers as a flotilla glided past; that is, if an Indian could ever be regarded by an early settler as anything but “pizen.” But these canoes served equally well to convey the painted and feathered braves to battle; and anyone who has seen the Indians in their canoes can well imagine how in days now happily past, it is hoped for ever, a fleet of these boats, filled with cruel and relentless men, passed swiftly and silently over the waters at night, their paddles so skilfully wielded that the blades entered and left the water with never a splash to break the solemn stillness. Then the Indian canoe was no longer an emblem of joyous happiness, made only for the sparkling waters and clear nights and days of that foretaste of Paradise, the Indian summer, fit craft for the romantic passing of Hiawatha to “the kingdom of Ponemah”; but an evil thing, as swift and silent and terrible as the bloodthirsty men it bore to victory or destruction. [Illustration: WAR CANOES OF INDIANS OF THE NORTH-WEST. _From a Photograph of a Painting, supplied by the Curator of the Chicago Museum._] The skin canoe or kayak of the Eskimo holds only one person, though its length may be anything from 7 or 8 feet to 25 feet. It is simply a light frame, running to a fine point at either end, never more than a few inches in depth, and with a breadth determined by the breadth of the man who is to use it. It is entirely skin-covered, except for a small hole in the deck, just abaft of amidships, in which the solitary occupant sits. The Eskimo are very clever in the management of their light craft--it weighs but a few pounds, and for its size is probably the lightest sea-going vessel in the world--and employ it chiefly in hunting, even at some distance from land.