The form of the sections near the ends of a canoe are controlled to a great extent by the form of midsection. In canoes having flat bottoms combined with flaring sides this form was usually carried to the ends, where it became a rather sharp V, giving fine lines for speed when the canoe was light, and only moderately increased resistance when it was loaded. Among eastern canoes having tumble-home topsides, the midsection form could be carried to the ends, gradually becoming sharper in canoes having "chin" in the profiles of the ends; in canoes having no chin, the sections necessarily took a pointed oval form close to the ends. A few canoes having flaring sides and chin ends showed a similar change in form. In all, however, the bow and stern showed a tendency toward fullness near the waterline.
Canoes with a strongly U-shaped midsection commonly carried this form to the ends, with increasing sharpness in the round of the U. The U-form predominated in the end-sections of eastern canoes, of course, though a few showed a V-form, as must be expected. The fairing of the end sections into the end profiles appears to have controlled this matter. The outline of the gunwales, in plan view, also influenced the form of the end-sections and of the level lines there. Some canoes, when viewed from above, showed a pinched-in form at the ends, this was caused by the construction of the gunwales or by the projection of the end-profile forms beyond the ends of the true structural gunwale members. Such canoes would have a very strong hollow in the level lines projected through their hull-form below the gunwales, and this could have been accentuated by any strong chin in the bow and stern shapes. On the other hand, many canoes showed no hollow, and the level lines were straight for some distance inboard of the ends, or were slightly convex. Full, convex level lines will appear below the waterline in canoes having a strongly rockered bottom.
It should be noted that the Indians were aware that very sharp-ended canoes usually were fast under paddle; hence they employed this characteristic in any canoe where high speed was desired. However, the degree of sharpness in the gunwales and at the level lines is not always the same at both ends, though the variation is sometimes too slight to be detected without careful measurement; it may at times have been accidental, but in many cases it appears to have been intentional.
Some eastern canoes having their greatest width, or beam, on the gunwales at midlength had finer level lines aft than forward, apparently to produce trim by the stern when afloat and manned. This made them steer well in rough water. Some northwestern canoes had their greatest beam abaft the midlength, giving them a long, sharp bow; the run was sometimes formed by sweeping up the bottom aft to a shallow stern, as well as by the double-ended form of the canoe. Despite a general similarity in the form of the ends, in some canoes the bow was marked by its greater height, in others, by the manner in which the bark was lapped at the seams, or by the manner of decoration. In a few with ends exactly alike the bow was indicated by the fitting of the thwarts such as, for example, by placing at the forward end a particular style of thwart, intended to hold the torch used in spearing fish at night, or to support a mast and sail.
In examining the lines, or model, of a bark canoe, the limitations imposed upon the builder by the characteristics of bark must be considered. The degree of flexibility, the run of the grain, and the toughness and elasticity of the bark used all influenced the form of canoes. The marked chin in the ends of some canoes, for example, resulted from an effort to offset the tendency of birch bark to split when a row of stitches lay in the same line of grain. The curved chin profile allowed the stitching to cross a number of lines of grain. Sometimes this tendency was avoided by incorporating battens into the coarse stitching; this style of sewing was particularly useful in piecing out birch bark for width in a canoe, where the sewing had to be in line with the grain. The Indians also employed alternating short and long stitching in some form for the same purpose. Spruce bark, as used in canoes in the extreme North and Northwest, could be sewn in much the same manner as birch bark, but with due regard for the longitudinal grain of the spruce bark.
The joining of two pieces of bark by root sewing or lacing, combined with the use of spruce gum to obtain watertightness, formed a seam that could be readily damaged by abrasion from launching the canoe, from pulling it ashore, or from grounding it accidentally. For this reason, seams below the waterline were kept at a minimum and were never placed along the longitudinal centerline of the bottom, where they would have formed a sharp apex to both the V-shaped midsection and to the deadrise bottom form. Likewise, a seam was not used in forming the rocker of the bottom. Though seams had to be used to join the bark at bow and stern, the form of the canoe allowed the seams to be greatly strengthened and protected there.
The restrictions on form imposed by barks such as elm, chestnut, and hickory were very great. These barks, which are not as elastic as birch bark, were sometimes employed in a single large sheet. The sheets were not joined for length; canoes of this material were often formed by crimping, or lap folding, rather than by cutting out gores and then sewing the edges together. The characteristics of these barks can readily be demonstrated with a sheet of paper: such a sheet can be made into a crude canoe-form by bending it lengthwise and joining the ends, but it will be obvious that the midsection takes a very unstable U-form. By forcing the ends inward to give a ram, or chin, effect to bow and stern, a somewhat flatter bottom can be obtained in the midsection. By crimping or folding the paper gore-fashion near each end of the canoe-form at the gunwale edge, some rocker is created in the bottom and the width of the gunwales is increased near the ends, giving more capacity. But without the crimping along the gunwale, when the midsection form is flattened on the bottom, the latter tends to hog. Many of these bark canoes utilized both the rams ends and crimping to obtain a more useful form. However, while a sheet of birch bark could be crimped or gored into a scow-form canoe such as the Asiatic birch-bark canoe, no example of this form from North America is known. On this continent all bark canoes were sharp at both ends, i.e., double-ended, although a number of North American dugouts were scow-(or punt-) shaped.
Figure 22
Canoe formed (a) without crimping or goring sides, showing hogged bottom; and (b) with ram ends to reduce hogging of bottom.