The Malecite canoe, a straight-bottomed craft about 19 feet long and 36 inches beam, is used as the example, hence the method of building to be described is that generally employed in the East, where variations in construction mainly involve the use or omission of structural elements.
The gunwales are the first members to be formed. In the Malecite canoe these are the inner gunwales, as the canoe will have outwales and caps. The gunwales are split from white cedar to produce battens that will square 1½ inches when shaped. The gunwales are tapered each way from midlength, where they are 1½ inches square, to a point 3 inches short of the ends, where they are ¾ by 1 to 1¼ inches. The edges of the gunwales are all rounded, and the outboard bottom edge is beveled almost ½ inch, at 45° to the bottom of the member. The last 3 inches at each end is formed like half a blunt arrowhead, as shown in the sketch of the member on page [31]. The gunwales will be bent, side to side, on the flat as far as the ends are concerned, so the blunt arrowhead is formed on one of the wide faces of the ends as shown. The arrowhead form allows a neat joint when the gunwale ends are brought together, pegged athwartships, and then wrapped with a root lashing. In forming and finishing the gunwales, a good deal of care is required to get them to bend alike, so that the centerline of the finished frame will be straight and true.
To take the ends of the middle thwart, a mortise ¼ by 2 inches is cut in each gunwale member athwartships at exactly midlength, the length of the mortise being with the run of the gunwale. In it, the middle thwart, 33 inches long, is fitted. Made of a ⅞-inch by 3-inch piece of hard maple, the thwart tapers slightly in thickness each way from its center to within 5 inches of the shoulders, which are 30 inches apart. The thickness at a point 5 inches from the shoulder is ¾ inch; from there the taper is quick to the shoulder, which is 5⁄16 inch thick, with a drop to ¼ inch in the tenon. The width, 3 inches at the center, decreases in a graceful curve to within 5 inches of the shoulder, where it is 2 inches, then increases to about 3 inches at the shoulder. The width of the tenon is, of course, 2 inches, to fit the mortise hole in the gunwale. The edges of the outer 5 inches of the thwart are rounded off or beveled a good deal; inboard they are only slightly rounded.
The thwart is carefully fitted to the gunwale members and the ends are pegged. Some builders wedged the ends of this thwart from outside the gunwales, the wedge standing vertical in the thwart so that the gunwale would not split; however, it is not certain that wedging was used in prehistoric times, although it is seen in some existing old canoes. The pegs used in this canoe are driven from above, into holes bored through the gunwale and the tenon of the thwart to lock all firmly together. Three holes are then bored in the broad shoulders of the thwart about 1½ inches inboard of gunwale for the root lashing that is also used.
The ends of the gunwale members are now brought together, and to avoid an unfair curve appearing at the thwart in place, short pieces of split plank or of sapling, notched to hold them in place, are inserted between the gunwale members as temporary thwarts at points about 5 feet on each side of the middle thwart. After the ends are brought together and the final fitting is carried out, a peg is driven athwartships the ends and a single-part root lashing is carefully wrapped around the assembly.
Some canoe builders omitted the blunted half-arrowhead form at the gunwale end. Instead, the inside faces were tapered to allow the two parts to bear on one another for some distance. The gunwales were then pinched together and lashed with one or more wrappings. Finally, a thin wedge was sometimes driven from inboard between the two gunwale ends to tighten the wrappings. The wedges were usually so carefully fitted as to be difficult to identify. It is probable that this wedged gunwale ending represents the prehistoric form, and the blunted half-arrowhead ending is a result of the use of steel tools.
After the ends of the gunwales have been securely fastened together, the first pair of permanent thwarts is fitted. These are located 36 inches, center to center, on each side of the middle thwart, a distance that determines the centers of the mortises in each gunwale member. Each thwart, made from a ¾-inch by 3-inch piece, tapers smoothly in thickness from the ¾-inch center to the 5⁄16-inch shoulder. The tenon is of the same dimensions as that of the middle thwart, the width takes the same form as that of the middle thwart, and the edges are similarly beveled and rounded. The distance between the shoulders, taken along the centerline, is 22½ inches, and the centerline length of the thwart 25½ inches. However, the shoulders and ends of the tenons must be bevelled to follow the curve of the gunwales hence the extreme length of the thwart is actually very close to 26 inches. The worker determines the bevel of the shoulders by fitting the thwart to the run of the gunwales, the temporary thwarts being shifted so that the distance between the gunwales equals that set by the measuring stick. These two thwarts having been fitted, the tenons are pegged as before, but in the shoulders only one lashing hole is bored instead of the three employed in the middle thwart.
Figure 32