The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America

by Tappan Adney; Howard Irving Chapelle

When making long canoe trips, the Malecite followed the widespread Indian practice of using the canoe as a shelter at night. When a camping place was reached, the canoe was unloaded, carried ashore, and turned upside down so that the tops of the ends and one gunwale rested on the ground. If the ends were high enough, as in the old Malecite type, one gunwale was raised off the ground far enough to permit a man to crawl under. If, as in the Micmac canoes, the ends were too low to allow this, they were raised off the ground by short forked sticks, with the forks resting against the end thwarts and the upper gunwale and the heels stuck into the earth. The dunnage (provisions or other cargo) was then stowed on the ground under the ends of the canoe and the two men would sleep under a single blanket with their feet pointed in opposite directions, each with his head on a pile of dunnage. If there were too many men aboard to do this, in bad weather a crude shelter was made by resting some poles on the upturned bilge and covering them with sheets of bark; under such a shelter meals could be cooked.

Figure 63

Old Form of Malecite-Abnaki 2½—Fathom Ocean Canoe of the Penobscots. In the Peabody Museum, Salem, Mass.

As did many of the eastern Indians, the old Malecite tribesmen built canoes of materials other than birch bark. When a canoe was required for a temporary use such as in hunting, it could be made of spruce bark. (As the designs of such canoes were rather standardized, they will be dealt with in Chapter 8.) When bark was unobtainable, the Malecite built canoes covered with moosehide, or, in rare instances, they built wooden dugouts.

The old Malecite river canoe shown on page [71] will serve to illustrate a description of the details of construction that were used. These canoes were obviously built with their gunwales (which were the length of the bottom only) serving as a building frame. The ends of the gunwales were supported by headboards stepped on the heels of the inner stem-pieces, and the stems raked outward from their heels. The gunwale ends were joined to the head of the stem-piece by the outwales and the gunwale caps. Bark was used to the ends of the canoe. One side of the bark cover was cut so that it stood well above the sheer line from the gunwale end outboard, and the opposite side was cut to the level of the sheer. The first piece was then folded over the opposite side and down, so that it covered both the extreme ends of the gunwales and the top of the inner stem-piece. Another piece of bark was then fitted over this fold, and this new piece formed the flaps below the outwales on each side, the wulegessis. The outwales ran past the gunwale ends and were cut off flush with the outboard face of the stem; the caps ran likewise and covered the bark over the head of the inner stem piece. The characteristic sheer of these canoes, where the rise toward the ends began, showed a quick curve that faired into a rising straight line at the gunwale and then continued straight and rising to the stem head. The wulegessis was therefore quite long. The ends of the gunwales were not of the half-arrowhead shape, but were snied off on their inboard sides so that they met on a rather long bevel; the lashing was slightly let in to the outboard faces to keep it from slipping over the gunwale ends. The caps of the gunwales were similarly reduced in width, where they came together over the ends of the canoe.

Figure 64

Large 3-Fathom Ocean Canoe of the Passamaquoddy porpoise hunters. These canoes were sometimes fitted to sail or outrigged for rowing. The last of this type had much lower ends.

The main gunwale members were about 1¼ inches square amidships, tapering to ¾ inch at the ends. The lower outboard corner was beveled to take the ends of the ribs, as shown on page [71], and the lower inboard corner was also beveled or rounded, but to a lesser degree. The upper inboard corner, shown beveled in the drawing of figure 62, was sometimes slightly rounded, as were the outwales. Amidships the outwale was about 1 inch deep, and it tapered toward the ends, where its depth was about ⅝ inch, the thickness being ½ inch amidships and a scant ⅜ inch at the ends. On the canoe shown, the cap was ⅜ inch thick, tapering to about ⁵⁄₁₆ inch at the ends, and 1¾ inches wide amidships, tapering to about ⅝ or ½ inch where the caps came together at the ends. The top corners of the cap were beveled in the example.