The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America. Howard Irving Chapelle
Chapter One EARLY HISTORY
The development of bark canoes in North America before the arrival of the white men cannot satisfactorily be traced. Unlike the dugout, the bark canoe is too perishable to survive in recognizable form buried in a bog or submerged in water, so we have little or no visual evidence of very great age upon which to base sound assumptions.
Records of bark canoes, contained in the reports of the early white explorers of North America, are woefully lacking in detail, but they at least give grounds for believing that the bark canoes even then were highly developed, and were the product of a very long period of existence and improvement prior to the first appearance of Europeans.
The Europeans were most impressed by the fact that the canoes were built of bark reinforced by a light wooden frame. The speed with which they could be propelled by the Indians also caused amazement, as did their light weight and marked strength, combined with a great load-carrying capacity in shallow water. It is remarkable, however, that although bark canoes apparently aroused so much admiration among Europeans, so little of accurate and complete information appears in their writings.
With two notable exceptions, to be discussed later, early explorers, churchmen, travellers, and writers were generally content merely to mention the number of persons in a canoe. The first published account of variations in existing forms of the American bark canoe does not occur until 1724, and the first known illustration of a bark canoe accurate enough to indicate its tribal designation appeared only two years earlier. This fact makes any detailed examination of the early books dealing with North America quite unprofitable as far as precise information on bark canoes is concerned.
The first known reference by a Frenchman to the bark canoe is that of Jacques Cartier, who reported that he saw two bark canoes in 1535; he said the two carried a total of 17 men. Champlain was the first to record any definite dimensions of the bark canoes; he wrote that in 1603 he saw, near what is now Quebec, bark canoes 8 to 9 paces long and 1½ paces wide, and he added that they might transport as much as a pipe of wine yet were light enough to be carried easily by one man. If a pace is taken as about 30 inches, then the canoes would have been between 20 and 23 feet long, between 40 and 50 inches beam and capable of carrying about half a ton, English measurements. These were apparently Algonkin canoes. Champlain was impressed by the speed of the bark canoes; he reported that his fully manned longboat was passed by two canoes, each with two paddlers. As will be seen, he was perhaps primarily responsible for the rapid adoption of bark canoes by the early French in Canada.
The first English reference that has been found is in the records of Captain George Weymouth's voyage. He and his crew in 1603 saw bark canoes to the westward of Penobscot Bay, on what is now the coast of Maine. The English were impressed, just as Champlain had been, by the speed with which canoes having but three or four paddlers could pass his ship's boat manned with four oarsmen. Weymouth also speaks admiringly of the fine workmanship shown in the structure of the canoes.
When Champlain attacked the Iroquois, on what is now Lake Champlain, he found that these Indians had "oak" bark (more probably elm) canoes capable of carrying 10, 15, and 18 men. This would indicate that the maximum size of the Iroquois canoes was about 30 to 33 feet long. The illustrations in his published account indicate canoes about 30 feet long; but early illustrations of this kind were too often the product of the artist's imagination, just as were the delineations of the animals and plants of North America.
As an example of what may be deduced from other early French accounts, Champlain in 1615, with a companion and 12 Indians, embarked at La Chine in two bark canoes for a trip to the Great Lakes. He stated that the two canoes, with men and baggage aboard, were over-crowded. Taking one of these canoes as having 7 men and baggage aboard, it seems apparent that it was not much larger than the largest of the canoes Champlain had seen in 1603 on the St. Lawrence. But in 1672, Louis Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette traveled in two canoes, carrying a total of 5 French and 25 Indians—say 14 in one canoe and 16 in the other. These canoes, then, must have been at least 28 feet long over the gunwales, exclusive of the round of the ends, or about 30 feet overall. The Chevalier Henri de Tonti, one of La Salle's officers, mentions a canoe carrying 30 men—probably 14 paddlers on each side, a steersman, and a passenger or officer. Such a capacity might indicate a canoe about 40 feet over the gunwales, though this seems very long indeed; it is more probable that the canoe would be about 36 feet long.
Another of La Salle's officers, Baron de LaHontan, gave the first reasonably complete account that has been found of the size and character of a birch-bark canoe. This was written at Montreal June 29, 1684. After stating that he had seen at least a hundred bark canoes in his journeys, he said that birch-bark canoes ranged in length from 10 to 28 pieds and were capable of carrying from 2 to 14 persons. The largest, when carrying cargo, might be handled by three men and could carry 2,000 pounds of freight (20 quintals). These large canoes were safe and never upset. They were built of bark peeled in the winter; hot water was thrown on the bark to make it pliable, so that it could be rolled up after it was removed from the tree. The canoes were built of more than one piece of bark as a rule.
The large canoes, he reports, were 28 pieds long, 4½ pieds wide and 20 pouces deep, top of gunwale to top of frames on bottom. The last indicates "inside" measurement; in this the length would be over the gunwales, not overall, and the beam inside the gunwales, not extreme. He also says the canoes had a lining or sheathing of cedar "splints" or plank and, inside this, cedar ribs or frames. The bark was the thickness of an écu (this coin, a crown, was a little less than ⅛ inch thick), the sheathing the thickness of two écus, and the ribs of three. The ends of the ribs were pointed and these were seated in holes in the underside of the gunwales. There were 8 crosspieces (thwarts) between the gunwales (note: such a canoe would commonly have 9 thwarts; LaHontan may have erred here).
The canoes were convenient, he says, because of their great lightness and shallow draft, but they were easily damaged. Hence they had to be loaded and unloaded afloat and usually required repairs to the bark covers at the end of each day. They had to be staked down at night, so that a strong wind might not damage or blow them away; but this light weight permitted them to be carried with ease by two men, one at each end, and this suited them for use on the rivers of Canada, where rapids and falls made carrying frequently necessary. These canoes were of no value on the Lakes, LaHontan states, as they could not be used in windy weather; though in good weather they might cross lakes and might go four or five leagues on open water. The canoes carried small sails, but these could be used only with fair winds of moderate force. The paddlers might kneel, sit, or stand to paddle and pole the canoes. The paddle blade was 20 pouces long, 6 wide, and 4 lignes thick; the handle was of the diameter of a pigeon's egg and three pieds long. The paddlers also had a "setting pole," to pole the canoes in shoal water. The canoes were alike at both ends and cost 80 écus (LaHontan's cost 90), and would last not more than five or six years. The foregoing is but a condensed extract of LaHontan's lively account.
In translating LaHontan's measurements a pied is taken as 12.79 inches, a pouce as about 1⅛ inches. The French fathom, or brasse, as used in colonial Canada, was the length from finger-tip to finger-tip of the arms outstretched and so varied, but may be roughly estimated as about 64 inches; this was the "fathom" used later in classing fur-trade canoes for length. In English measurements his large canoe would have been about 30 feet long over the gunwales and, perhaps, almost 33 feet overall, 57½ inches beam inside the gunwales, or about 60 inches extreme beam. The depth inside would be 21 or 21¾ inches bottom to top of gunwale amidships. LaHontan also described the elm-bark canoes of the Iroquois as being large and wide enough to carry 30 paddlers, 15 on a side, sitting or standing. Here again a canoe about 40 feet long is indicated. He said that these elm-bark canoes were crude, heavy and slow, with low sides, so that once he and his men reached an open lake, he no longer feared pursuit by the Iroquois in these craft.