The mast was secured by a thwart pegged, or nailed, across the gunwale caps. Sometimes, the thwart was also notched over the caps, so that the side-thrust caused by the leverage of the mast would not shear the fastenings. The crossbar for the sheet was sometimes similarly fastened and fitted, with its ends projecting outboard of the gunwales. The heel of the mast was sometimes stepped into a block, which was usually about 5 inches square and 1½ inches thick, nailed or pegged to the center bottom board, or sometimes it was merely stepped into a hole in the center bottom board. The bottom boards, usually three in number were of wide, thin stock and were clamped in place over the ribs by three or four false frames driven under the thwarts, just as were the canoe ribs under the gunwales.
Figure 59
Details of Micmac Canoes, Including Mast and Sail.
The canoes could not sail close-hauled, as a rule, though some Indians learned to use a leeboard in the form of a short plank hung vertically over the lee side and secured by a lanyard to a thwart, the board being shifted in tacking. An alternate was to have a passenger hold a paddle vertically on the lee side. There seems to have been no fixed proportions to the area of sail used; the actual areas appear to have been somewhere between 50 and 100 square feet, depending upon the size of the canoe. Joseph Dadaham, a Micmac, stated in 1925 that he used "24 yards" in the sail of a "rough-water canoe" 20 feet long and about 44 inches beam, while one 18 feet long and about 36 inches extreme beam carried "16 to 18 yards"; it is obvious that the "yards" are of narrow sail cloth and not square yards of finished sail. In the last days of sailing bark canoes, mast hoops and a halyard block were fitted so that the sail could be lowered instead of having to be furled around the mast (to accomplish this the "crew" had to stand). Dadaham also stated that for his sheet belay he used a jamb-hitch which could be released quickly when the canoe was found to be overpowered by the wind. It appears that during the last era of these bark canoes the rig had been improved to fit it for open-water sailing.
The paddles used by the Micmac appear to have varied in shape. If the canoe shown in Chapter 1 (p. [12]) was indeed a Micmac canoe as supposed, the paddle shown there is quite different from the later tribal forms illustrated above, and it is possible that the top grips shown in the more modern forms were never used in prehistoric times, when the pole handle shown with the old canoe may have been standard.
The Micmac canoes were decorated by scraping away part of the inner rind of the birch bark, leaving portions of it in a formal design. It seems very probable that the Micmac seldom used this form of decoration in early times, but later they used it a great deal in their rough-water canoes, perhaps as a result of contact with the Malecite. The formal designs used as decoration by the Micmac did not have any particular significance as a totem or religious symbol; they were used purely as decoration or to identify the owner. Such forms as the half-moon, a star in various shapes, or some other figure might be used by the builder, but these were apparently only his canoe mark, not a family insignia or his usual signature, and could be altered at will.
The usual method of decoration was to place the canoe mark on both sides of the canoe at the ends and to have along the gunwales amidships a long narrow panel of decoration, usually of some simple form. The panel decorations are said by Micmacs to have been selected by the builder merely as pleasing designs. One design used was much like the fleur-de-lis, another was a series of triangles supposed to represent camps, still another was the northern lights design, a series of closely spaced, sloping, parallel lines (or very narrow panels) that seem to represent a design much used in the quill decoration for which the Micmac were noted. Canoes are recorded as having stylized representations of a salmon, a moose, a cross, or a very simple star form; these may have been canoe marks or may once have been a tribal mark in a certain locality. A series of half-circles were sometimes used in the gunwale panels, which were rarely alike on both sides of the canoe, and it is probable that use was made of other forms that have not been recorded. Colored quills in northern lights pattern were used in some model or toy canoes but not in any surviving example of a full-size canoe. It is quite possible, however, that such quill-work was once used in Micmac canoe decoration. Painting of the bark cover for decorative purposes in Micmac canoes has not been recorded.
Figure 60