The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America

by Tappan Adney; Howard Irving Chapelle

The keel was then laid on the bed and a series of stakes, perhaps 4½ feet long, were driven into the bed on each side of the piece in opposing pairs at intervals of perhaps 2 or 3 feet. The stakes and keel piece were then removed and the bark cover laid over the bed. This may have been in two or three lengths, with the edges overlapped so that the outside edge of the lap faced away from what was to be the stern. The keel was then placed on the bark and weighted down with a few stones or lashed at the stem heads to the end stakes; then the bark was folded up on each side of the keel, and the stakes slipped back into their holes in the bed and driven solidly into place, perhaps with the tops angled slightly outward. The heads were then tied together across the work and battens placed along the stakes and the outside of the bark to form a "trough" against which the cover could be held with horizontal inside battens. These were secured by "inside stakes" lashed to each outside stake in the manner used in building eastern Indian canoes (see p. [45]). The bark cover now stood on the bed in a sharp V form, with the keel supported on the bed, the ends of the bark supported by the end stakes, and both held down by stones along the length of the keel. An alternative would have been to fix heavy stakes at the extreme bow and stern of the keel and to lash the stem-heads firmly to these in order to hold the keel down on the bark.

Next the main gunwales, prebent to the required form, were brought to the building bed and their ends temporarily lashed to stem and stern. The bark was brought up to these, trimmed, folded over their tops, and secured by a few temporary lashings. Then the outwales were placed outside the bark with their ends temporarily secured, and a few pegs were driven through outwale, bark, and main gunwales, or a few permanent lashings were passed. The bark cover was next securely lashed to the gunwales and outwales combined, all along the sheer to a point near the ends. The excess bark was then trimmed away at bow and stern and the cover was laced to the end pieces to form bow and stern. This lacing must have passed through the laminations of the stem and stern pieces in the usual manner, avoiding the spiral lashing that held the laminae together. The ends of the gunwales and outwales were next permanently lashed together with root or other material and to the stem and stern pieces. This done, the gunwales were spread apart amidships, pressing the stakes outward still more at the tops. At this point the tenons may have then been cut in the main gunwales and the thwarts inserted. This method, incidentally, was used in building some western Indian bark canoes.

The usual steps of completing a birch-bark canoe would then follow—the insertion of sheathing, held in place by temporary ribs, and then the driving home of the prebent ribs under the main gunwales, with their heads in the spaces between the group lashings along the gunwales and against the lower outboard corner of the main gunwale member, which was probably beveled as in the Malecite canoe. The sheathing may have been in two or three lengths, except close to the gunwale amidships where one length would serve. On each side of the keel piece a sheathing strake was placed which was thick on the edge against the keel but thin along the outboard edge, in order to fair the sheathing into the keel piece.

At some point in this process, the bark cover was pieced out to make the required width, and gores were cut in the usual manner. In spreading the gunwales, the bow and stern would have to be freed from any stakes, as these would tend to pull inboard slightly as the gunwales were spread in the process of shaping the hull. The ribs could have been put in while green and shaped in the bark cover by use of battens and cross braces inside, as were those of the St. Francis canoes.

The sewing of the bark cover at panels and gores would take place before the sheathing and ribs were placed, of course. A 15-foot canoe when completed would have a girth amidships of about 65 to 68 inches if the beam at the gunwales were 48 inches, and a bark cover of this width could be taken from a tree of roughly 20 inches in diameter. Hence, there may have been little piecing out of the bark for width. In the form of the Beothuk canoe as reconstructed there is nothing that departs from what is possible by the common Indian canoe-building techniques. The finished canoe would, in all respects, agree with most of the descriptions that have been found and would be a practical craft in all the conditions under which it would be employed.

These were the only birch-bark canoes supposed to have made long runs in the open sea clear of the land. In them the Beothuk are supposed to have made voyages to the outlying islands, in which runs in open water of upward of 60 miles would be necessary, and they probably crossed from Newfoundland to Labrador.

The V-form used by the Beothuk canoe was the most extreme of all birch-bark canoe models in North America, although, as has been mentioned, less extreme V-bottoms were used elsewhere. The Beothuk canoe may have been a development of some more ancient form of bark sea canoe also related to the V-bottom canoes of the Passamaquoddy. The most marked structural characteristic of the Beothuk canoe was the keel; the only other canoe in which a true keel was employed was the temporary moosehide canoes of the Malecite.

The Beothuk keel piece may have sometimes been nearly round in section like the keel of the Malecite moosehide canoe (p. [214]). The two garboard strakes of the sheathing may have been shaped in cross section to fair the bark cover from the thin sheathing above to the thick keel and at the same time allow the ribs to hold the garboards in place. They could, in fact, be easily made, since a radial split of a small tree would produce clapboard-like cross sections. This construction would perhaps comply better with Cartwright's description of the keel than that shown in the plan on page [97].

The sheer of the Beothuk canoe is an exaggerated form of the gunwale shape of the Micmac rough-water canoe but this, of course, is no real indication of any relationship between the two. Indeed, the probable scarfing of the gunwales of the Beothuk canoe might be taken as evidence against such a theory. On the other hand, the elm-bark and other temporary canoes of the Malecite and Iroquois had crudely scarfed gunwale members, as did some northwestern bark canoes.

Most of the building techniques employed by Indians throughout North America are illustrated by these eastern bark canoes, yet marked variation in construction details existed to the westward, as will be seen.