It does not appear to have been the common practice of the Têtes de Boule to decorate their small canoes, though when building for white men they would decorate if the buyer requested it.
The paddles used by the Têtes de Boule were somewhat like those of the eastern Cree but the blade was slightly wider near the tip than near the handle. The top grip was formed wide and thin, the taper from the lower grip to the upper one often being very long. The paddles were usually of white birch, but maple was used in a few of the examples examined.
The gunwales, outwales, and caps of the Têtes de Boule canoes were usually of spruce; the ribs and stem pieces, white cedar; the thwarts, white birch; the headboards, white cedar in all but one of the canoes inspected (in this, birch had been used). Jack pine was used also for thwarts, and cedar was sometimes used for the gunwale members; as would be expected, the builders used the materials that were at hand near the building sites.
Têtes de Boule fur-trade canoes, like those of the eastern Cree, appear to have had no relationship to the smaller tribal types, since they were constructed under supervision of white men. They will be discussed as a group on page [135].
Algonkin
The Algonkins were a tribe residing on the Ottawa River and its tributaries, in what are now the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, when the French first met them. They appear to have been a large and powerful tribe and were apparently competent builders and users of birch-bark canoes. They were not the same tribe as the Ottawa, who controlled the Lake Huron end of the canoe route between Montreal and Lake Superior, by way of the Ottawa River. These Ottawa were related to the Ojibway tribe and received their name from the French, who gave the name Outaouais, or "Ottaway," to all Indians, except the Hurons, who came from the west by way of the Ottawa. The Algonkins, because of their location, were much influenced by the French fur trade. Early in the 18th century they intermingled with certain Iroquois whom they allowed to settle with them, near Montreal, at the Lake of Two Mountains, later Oka. Thence they gradually spread out and lost tribal unity, until only small groups were left. These lived on the Golden Lake Algonkin Reserve, Bonshere River, Ontario; at Oka, Quebec; and elsewhere in western Quebec and eastern Ontario. It is possible that they were the first to build fur-trade canoes for the French, but evidence to support such a claim with any certainty is lacking.
Due to intermixing with other tribal groups and to the influence of the fur trade, in which they were long employed as canoe men and builders, the Algonkins no longer used a single tribal model of canoe. However, one of their models, which had high ends resembling those of the large fur-trade canoe, may have been the tribal type from which the fur-trade canoe was developed, as will be seen.
Figure 105