Birch bark was often poor or scarce in the territory of the western Cree, as in that of their eastern brothers. As a substitute, they employed spruce bark and in general seem to have achieved better results, for their spruce-bark canoes had a neater appearance. If the canoe was built when or where root material was difficult to obtain, the western Cree used rawhide for sewing the bark cover. When the stems were lashed with rawhide, a stem-band of bark under the lashing was common.
The gunwales were round in cross section and were often spliced amidships. The bark cover was lashed to these with a continuous lashing, no caps or outwales being employed. As in the Ojibway long-nose canoe, the headboards were very narrow and much bellied. These canoes were built with four or five thwarts; the 4-thwart type was used for gathering wild rice, as was the Ojibway type, while the 5-thwart canoe was the portage model. The thwarts were sometimes mortised into the gunwales, but some builders made the thwart ends chisel-pointed and drove them into short splits in the gunwales before lashing them, one or two holes being drilled in the thwart ends to take the lashing thongs. When the thwarts were tenoned into the gunwales, the builders of course made the inside of the gunwales flat.
When spruce bark was employed, its greater stiffness made it possible to space the ribs as much as 10 inches on centers, but with birch the spacing was about 1 inch, edge to edge. The sheathing was in short splints and the inside of the canoe was "shingled" or covered irregularly without regard to lining off the strakes, a practice sometimes observed in Ojibway long-nose canoes. The much-bellied and narrow headboards were fitted as in the long-nose canoe, and the heel was secured under a piece of sheathing and held by it and the first two ribs.
Western Cree canoes were built with a building frame, and the bed was raised in the middle. The sewing varied. The ends were lashed with combinations of close-wrapped turns, crossed turns, grouped, and spiral turns; the lashing commonly went around the inside stem piece rather than through it. Side panels were sewn with in-and-out stitches or back stitches, and the gores with the usual spiral. Gumming as a rule was done with clear spruce gum tempered by repeated meltings.
Figure 124
Western Cree 2½-Fathom Canoe, Winisk River District, northwest of James Bay. Built of either birch or spruce bark. Inside root stem piece, round gunwales, and much-bellied headboard are typical.
The woodwork varied with the building site; some builders could use much cedar, but spruce was most common and the thwarts were usually of birch. When spruce bark was used it was never employed in a single large sheet, since it would have been impossible to mold it to the required shape. Hence the bark cover was pieced up, whether birch or spruce, as an aid in molding the form. Before the spruce bark was sewed and gummed, the edges of the pieces had to be thinned to make a neat joint. Furthermore, in the continuous lashing it was desirable to take two or three turns through one hole in the bark cover to avoid weakening the material with closely spaced holes.
The western Cree paddles had parallel-sided blades with rounded tips; the handle sometimes had a ball-shaped top grip and sometimes it was pole-ended. The blade did not have a ridge on its face near the handle. Old Cree paddles were often decorated with red pigment bands, markings in the shape of crosses, squares in series, and dots on the blades; the top grip might also be painted.
Many tribal groups in the western portion of the area have been mentioned—Teton, Sioux, Assiniboine, Illinois, Huron, and many others—but no record of their canoe forms has survived and the assigning of any model to them is pure speculation. The fur trade alone brought about a period of tribal movement among the Indians long enough to erase many tribal distinctions in canoes and to cause types to move great distances.