The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America

by Tappan Adney; Howard Irving Chapelle

There is ample evidence to support the belief that a great many of the tribes building birch-bark canoes also used temporary canoes of other barks such as spruce and elm, as has been mentioned in earlier chapters. Invariably, the qualities of these other barks, particularly spruce, were such that their use was often somewhat more laborious and the results less satisfactory than with birch; but the necessities of travel and the availability of materials were controlling factors, and with care spruce bark could be used to build a canoe almost as good as one of birch bark. The forms of these canoes do not appear to have been as standardized as the tribal forms of the better-built bark canoes; rather, the model of the temporary canoe was entirely a matter to be decided by the individual builder on the basis of the importance of the temporary canoe to his needs, the limitation on time allowed for construction, and the material available.

The reasons for using substitute material are fairly obvious. In forest travel it was not always possible or practical to portage a canoe for a long distance simply to make a short water passage somewhere along the route. War parties and hunters, therefore, often found it necessary to build a temporary canoe, one that could be utilized for a limited water passage and then abandoned. Since such a limited use did not warrant expenditure of much time or labor on construction, the canoe was prepared quickly from readily available material and in order to meet these requirements many Indian tribes developed canoe forms and building techniques somewhat different from the more elaborate construction using birch or spruce bark.

It is obvious that much time and work could be avoided by use of a single large sheet of bark that was reasonably flexible and strong. But many of the barks meeting this specification had a coarse longitudinal grain that split easily, so forming a canoe by cutting gores was out of the question. This difficulty was avoided by folding, or "crimping," the bark cover along the gunwales at two or more places on each side of the canoe; this permitted the bottom to be flattened athwartships and the keel line to be rockered, both desirable in a canoe.

The problem of closing the ends also had to be solved. This was done by clamping the ends of the bark between two battens and, perhaps, a bark cord as well, and then lashing together the battens, bark ends, and cord with wrappings of root thongs. Cord made from the inner bark of the basswood and other trees could also be used for this purpose. The ends of the canoe could then be made watertight by a liberal application of gum or tallow, while grass, shavings, moss, or inner bark mixed with gum or even clay could be used to fill the larger openings that might appear in hurried construction.

Obviously, a simple wood structure was required by the specifications. Therefore, the gunwales were usually made of saplings with their butts roughly secured together or spliced. This allowed length to be obtained without the necessity of working down large poles to usable dimensions, a laborious and time-consuming undertaking with primitive tools. The thwarts were commonly of saplings with the ends cut away so that the thin remainder could be wrapped around the main gunwales and lashed underneath the thwarts inboard. Ribs were usually of split saplings, but there is some evidence that in very hurriedly built canoes the whole small sapling was used. The kind of sheathing employed in these canoes during the pre-Columbian era is a mystery. It would be quite unlikely that time was taken to split splints such as were used in the late elm-and spruce-bark canoes, when steel tools were available. The writers believe that for small canoes it may have been the practice to use a second sheet of stiff bark inside the first and extending only through the middle two-thirds of the length, across the bottom and up above the bilge but short of the gunwales. This, with the ribs and a few poles lashed to each rib along the bottom, would have given sufficient longitudinal strength and a stiff enough bottom for practical use. However, in large canoes of the type reputedly employed by Iroquois warriors, a stronger construction seems necessary, and these canoes may have had a number of split or whole poles lashed to the ribs along the bottom.

With small variations in details, the general construction outlined above was employed by many North American Indians for building temporary canoes for emergency use. In at least one case, however, it was also used in canoes of somewhat more permanent status within the boundaries of the powerful Iroquois Confederation. On large bodies of water within their territory, the Iroquois used dugouts, but for navigating streams and for use in raiding their enemies they employed bark canoes. While some birch bark was available there, it was probably widely scattered; therefore these great warriors used elm or other bark for their canoe building.

Early French accounts show that the Iroquois built bark canoes of greater size than ordinary; Champlain wrote that their canoes were of oak bark and were large enough to carry up to 18 warriors; later French accounts, as we shall see, indicate that the Iroquois used even larger canoes than these. Champlain may have been in error about the Iroquois use of oak bark, as suggested earlier (p. [7]), for experiments have shown that the inner bark of this tree is too thin and weak for the purpose; the canoes Champlain saw may have been built of white or red elm bark. The barks of the butternut, hickory, white pine, and chestnut might also have been employed, as they were usually suitable.

It was noted by the early French writers that the Iroquois built their bark canoes very rapidly when these craft were required by a war party in order to attack their enemies or to escape pursuit. In one case at least the canoes for a war party were apparently built in a single day. This was accomplished, it seems, by the excellent organization of their war parties, in which every man was assigned a duty, even in making canoes.

When it was deemed necessary to build a canoe, certain warriors were to search out and obtain the necessary materials in the order required for construction. To do this effectively, they had to know the materials in order of their suitability for a given purpose, for the most desirable material might not be available at the building site. Other warriors prepared the materials for construction, scraping the bark, making thongs, and rough-shaping the wood. Others built the canoe, cutting and sewing the bark, and shaping and lashing the woodwork. These duties, too, required intimate knowledge of the different materials that could be used in canoe construction. It would be natural, of course, to find that the methods used to construct a temporary craft for a war-party would also be employed at home by the hunter or fisherman, even when a rather more permanent canoe was desired. These were smaller craft and easily built. Only when a long-lasting watercraft was desired would the bark canoe be unsatisfactory; then the dugout could be built. The early French observers agree that though the Iroquois occasionally used birch-bark canoes, these were acquired from their neighbors by barter or capture and were not built by the tribesmen of the Confederation.

The details of the construction of elm canoes (and of other bark than birch) by the Iroquois are speculative, since no bark canoe of their construction has been preserved. This reconstruction of their methods is, therefore, based upon the incomplete accounts of early writers and upon what has been discovered about the construction of spruce-and elm-bark temporary canoes by other Eastern Indians.