While the ribs were customarily tree branches or small saplings, in some canoes the saplings were split and bent so their flat face was against the bark. In the East, hunters' canoes were often given the lath-like ribs of the birch-bark canoes, for when steel tools became available such ribs were easily made during the winter for use in the spring, when the temporary canoe would be needed.
According to the early reports, the ribs were placed some 6 to 10 inches apart in the bark cover, with the heads forced under the inwales against the bark, and were supported there by the outwales as well. No mention is made of any sheathing; Kalm refers to a piece of bark and some saplings or tree branches laid over the ribs to protect the bottom inboard. In the large Iroquois canoes it would have been possible and practical to employ a piece of bark inside the main bark cover, as noted on page [213]; this inside piece needed to be only long enough to reach to the end thwarts, or abreast the crimps, and wide enough to cover the bottom and bilges up to 3 or 4 inches short of the inwales. With the ribs over this inner sheet, a stiff bottom would result. In a long canoe, split poles could be laid lengthwise inside the bottom of the canoe and fastened there by lashing them to a few ribs; these would serve to protect the bottom in loading and to stiffen the bark cover. However, in a small canoe the stiffness of elm bark when the rough outside layer was not fully scraped off would make sheathing of any kind unnecessary, and the bark mat inside the ribs, mentioned by Kalm, would be sufficient.
The difficulty in reconstructing the building methods of the large Iroquois canoes on the same basis is that Kalm's description is of a rather small canoe; the information on the temporary canoes of the eastern Indians also deals with short craft. It is evident, however, that poles were not usually placed between the bark and the ribs, as in temporary skin canoes built by Indians. It is also apparent that splints were not used by the Iroquois for sheathing large canoes.
The ends of the outwales in the Iroquois canoes seem to have been secured by snying them off on the outside face and holding these thin ends by the cord around the ends, as well as by the closure battens of the stems. In some eastern canoes, notably the elm-bark canoes of the St. Francis, the outwale ends projected slightly outboard of the stems and were lashed across them by a simple athwartship lashing which passed through the bark cover and under and over the lashing at the inwale ends.
In a drawing of an Iroquois canoe made about 1849, the cord around the stems is shown together with the outside stem battens and lashing; the ends of the outwales are apparently under the cord and perhaps under the stem battens. The stem batten is in one piece sharply bent under the stems in U-form. The end lashing shown seems to be in groups and the bottom, for a little distance inboard of the stems, is also shown as lashed. Three thwarts are shown. It may be that this drawing was made not from a full-size canoe but from a model, for the proportions are obviously incorrect. This possibility casts some doubt on the picture as evidence of the building practices, for in Indian-built models simplified construction details not used in actual canoe building are often found.
According to early accounts and the statements of eastern Indians, these emergency canoes were often heavy and unsuitable for portaging. By 1750, at least, the Iroquois were using blanket square-sails in their elm-bark canoes.
Skin Boats
Among the other forms of temporary or emergency canoes used by North American Indians, the most widespread was some form of skin boat. These would not require description here were it not for the fact that the Indian skin boats were usually built by bark-canoe methods of construction rather than by methods such as used by the Eskimo. To build their skin boats—kayaks and umiaks—the Eskimo first constructed a complete framework, and this was then covered with skins sewn to fit. This process of building required a rigid framework capable of not only standing without a skin covering but also of giving both longitudinal and transverse strength sufficient to withstand loading, without the slightest support from the skin covering. Hence, the framework of the Eskimo craft was made with the members rigidly lashed and pegged together. The majority of Indian skin canoes, however, required the covering to hold the framework together, as in a birch-bark canoe. An example is the Malecite skin-covered hunters' canoe. According to available information, the Malecite hunter would leave two or three moose skins on stretchers for use in building a skin canoe in the early spring. Sometimes the hair was removed from the hides and sometimes it was not. Spare time during the winter hunt might be spent in preparing the wooden framework, but if this were not done the delay would not be very great.
The gunwale frame was first made of four small sapling poles roughly scarfed at the butts. From a small sapling a middle thwart was made in the manner of the elm-bark canoe thwarts, the ends tapered enough to allow them to be wrapped around the gunwales and secured under the thwart by lashings. The ends of the gunwales were merely crossed and lashed. Where end thwarts would be placed, it was usual to use a cross tie made of twisted rawhide or cords of bark fiber. Holes were then drilled at intervals in the underside of the gunwale to take the heads of the ribs. Stem-pieces about 3 feet long were prepared of short saplings and bent to the desired profile; one builder used a full-length keel-piece, instead of the short stem-pieces. The ribs were usually of small saplings that could be bent green without the use of hot water. For sheathing a number of small saplings were also gathered, and from them were made poles in lengths about equal to three-quarters, or a little more, of the intended length of the canoe, which would be determined by the size of the skins available. The average canoe was about 12½ feet long, roughly 40 inches beam, and 14 to 19 inches in depth.
The skins were sewn together lengthwise, lapped about 6 inches or a little less, and secured by a double row of stitching. If the hair had not been removed, it had to be scraped away along the sewn edges. In such a case the hair would usually be on the outside of the finished canoe. Also, before work was started on assembling a canoe, the skins were worked pliable, and tallow and gum were accumulated.