The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America

by Tappan Adney; Howard Irving Chapelle

Construction

One aspect of canoe construction, the Indian method of making measurements, was briefly mentioned (p. [8]) under a discussion of the origin of the measurement known in French Canada as the brasse. This was the distance from finger-tip to finger-tip of the arms outstretched; in the fur trade in English times it was known as the fathom and it appears to have been about 64 inches, or less than the nautical fathom of 6 feet. Other measurements used were the greatest width of the ball of the thumb, which is very close to an English inch, and the width of the four fingers, each finger-breadth being close to three-fourths of an English inch. The length of the forearm, usually from the knuckles of the clenched hand to the elbow, was also employed by some Indians, as a convenient measurement.

Measurements in these units might be memorized and used in building, but many Indians used measuring sticks, and these served as "foot-rules." They were sometimes squared and were painted as well as notched.

A Malecite Indian, interviewed in 1925, had three such sticks for canoe building. One, for the length of the gunwale frame, was half the total length required; it was notched to show the distance at which the ends of the gunwales were lashed and also the position of the thwarts. Such a stick would be about 7 feet long for a 16-foot canoe, 8 feet for an 18-foot canoe. The second stick was notched to show half the length of each of the thwarts. The third stick had notches showing the height of the gunwale at each thwart and at the end, four notches in all for the half-length of the canoe. This stick measured from the surface of the building bed, not from a regular base line.

The method of measuring canoes appears to have been fairly well standardized, at least in historical times. As stated earlier, length was commonly taken over the gunwales only, and did not include the end profiles, which might extend up to a foot or slightly more beyond the gunwale ends, bow and stern. However, in certain old records the overall length is given, and in various areas other methods of measurement existed. Where a building frame was used, the given length of the canoe was the length of this frame; usually this approximated the length of the gunwales. The width of a canoe was measured by the Indian from inside to inside of the main gunwale members. The extreme beam might be only 2 or 3 inches greater than the inside measurement of the gunwales, but if the sides bulged out, the beam might actually be 6 or more inches greater. The depth was usually measured from the inside of the ribs to the top of the gunwale but in building it was measured from the surface of the building bed to the bottom of the main gunwales, as noted above in the description of the measuring sticks.

Thus it will be seen that the Indian measurements constituted a statement of dimensions primarily useful to the builder, for their main purpose was to fix the proportions rather than establish the actual length, width, and depth. Today we state the length of a canoe in terms of extreme overall measurement; the Indian was inclined to state the length in building terms, giving dimensions applicable to the woodwork only, just as the old-time shipbuilder gave the keel length of a vessel instead of the overall length on deck.

The building site was carefully selected. The space in which the canoe was to be set up had to be smooth, free of stones and roots or anything that might damage the bark, and the soil had to be such that stakes driven into it would stand firmly. A shady place was preferred, as the bark would not dry there as fast as in sunlight. Since the construction of a canoe required both time and the aid of the whole Indian family, the site had to be close to a suitable place for camping, where food and water could be obtained. It is not surprising, therefore, to find canoe building sites that apparently had been used by generations of Indians.

The preparation of the building bed was controlled by the intended form of the canoe to be built. If the bottom of the canoe was to be rockered, the cleared ground was brought to a flat surface for the length required for setting up the canoe. If the rocker was to be great, the middle of the bed would be slightly depressed. If the bottom was to be straight fore-and-aft, or very nearly so, the bed was crowned from 1½ to 2 inches higher in the middle than at the ends, so that the canoe was first set up with a hogged bottom. Very large canoes such as were used in the fur trade required as much as 4 inches crown in the building bed. Other dimensions being equal, the amount of crown was usually somewhat greater in canoes having bulging sides than in ones having more upright or flaring sides. Canoe factories such as were operated in certain fur-trading posts sometimes had a plank building bed suitably crowned and drilled for setting the stakes.

Two methods of setting up the canoe were used. In most of the eastern area, the gunwales were put together and used to establish the plan outline of the canoe on the building bed. But a building frame was used for constructing the various narrow-bottom canoes having flaring sides, and for some other tribal forms. The frame, made in the same general form as the gunwales when assembled, but less wide and sometimes much shorter, could be taken apart easily, allowing it to be removed after the canoe was built; hence it could be used to build as many canoes as desired to the same dimensions as the first, and was retained by the builder as a tool, or pattern, for future use.

The method of construction in which gunwales only were used in setting up the canoe will be explained first in order to show the general technique of construction. Use of the building frame will then be described. Important deviations from these methods will be described in later chapters under the individual tribal types in which they occur.