BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
ALL AFLOAT seems to be the only book of its kind. Not only this, but no other book seems to have been written on the special subject of any one of its eleven chapters. There are many books in which canoes figure largely, but none which gives the history of the canoe in Canada. Books on sailing craft, on steamers, on fisheries, on every aspect of maritime administration, and, most of all, on navies, are very abundant. But, so far, none of them seems to have been devoted exclusively to the Canadian part of these various themes, with the single exception of a purely naval work, The Logs of the Conquest of Canada, by the present author, who has consequently been obliged to write a good deal from his own experience with paddle, sail, and steam. Of course there are many excellent articles, some of considerable length, in the Transactions of several learned societies, like the Royal Society of Canada, the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, the Nova Scotia Historical Society, the Ontario Historical Society, and so on. There are also a certain number of pamphlets and official bluebooks—like those of the department of Marine and Fisheries; and there is an immense mass of original evidence stored away in the Dominion Archives and elsewhere. But books for the public do not seem to exist; and the suggestion might be hazarded that this whole subject offers one of the best unworked or little-worked fields remaining open to the pioneer in Canadian historical research.
Under these circumstances all that can be done here is to name a few of the many books which either cover some part of the subject incidentally or deal with what is most closely allied to it.
CANOES are mentioned in every book of travel along the inland waterways, kayaks in every book about the Eskimos. La Hontan's Travels, though imaginative, give interesting details, as do the much more sober Travels of Peter Kalm, the Swedish naturalist. Kohl's Kitchi-Gami is a good book. But the list might be extended indefinitely.
SAILING CRAFT and STEAMERS require some sort of nautical dictionary, though even a dictionary sometimes adds to the puzzles of the landsman. Admiral Smyth's Sailor's Word Book, and Dana's Seaman's Friend (as it is called in the United States), or Seaman's Manual (as it is called in England), are excellent. Peake's Rudimentary Treatise on Shipbuilding covers the period so well described in Clark's Clipper Ship Era and Dana's Two Years before the Mast. Sir George Holmes's Ancient and Modern Ships and Paasch's magnificent polyglot marine dictionary, From Keel to Truck, deal with steam as well as sail. Lubbock's Round the Horn before the Mast gives a good account of a modern steel wind-jammer. Patton's article on shipping and canals in Canada and Its Provinces is a very good non-nautical account of its subject, and is quite as long and thorough as the ordinary book. Fry's History of North Atlantic Steam Navigation includes a great deal on Canada. The Times Shipping Number gives an up-to-date account of British and foreign shipping in 1912. Barnaby's Naval Development in the Nineteenth Century is well worth reading. So is Bullen's Men of the Merchant Service; and so, it might be added, are a hundred other books.
FISHERIES are the subject of a vast literature. An excellent general account, but more European than Canadian, is Hérubel's Sea Fisheries. Grenfell's Labrador and Browne's Where the Fishers Go give a good idea of the Atlantic coast; so, indeed, does Kipling's Captains Courageous. The butchering of seals in the Gulf and round Newfoundland does not seem to have found any special historian, though much has been written on the fur seal question in Alaska. Whaling is recorded in many books. Bullen's Cruise of the Cachalot is good reading; but annals that incidentally apply more closely to Bluenose whalers are set forth in Spears's Story of the New England Whalers.
Books on the many subjects grouped together under the general title of ADMINISTRATION cannot even be mentioned. Such headings as Marine Insurance, Seamen's Institutes, Lighthouses, Navigation, etc., must be looked up in reference catalogues.
When we come to NAVIES the number of books is so great that they too must be looked up separately. Corbett's England in the Seven Years' War and all the works of Admiral Mahan should certainly be consulted. Snider's collection of well-spun yarns, In the Wake of the Eighteen-Twelvers, seems to be the only book that has ever been devoted to the old Canadian Provincial Marine.