It is “a stage” that has moved forward its appointments in a truly marvellous and skilful fashion so as to link up “the Canada of all time”. For nothing we could name so bespeaks the true spirit of Canada in one breath as do the things found here in Indian Lorette in the full swing of production—the snowshoe, the moccasin and—the canoe.
The canoe, especially is a motif—a giant pattern gliding powerfully through the very warp and woof of the land. To go back—modifications of the canoe were here long before the Norsemen or Cabot or Columbus. To go forward—who can foresee the canoeless day?
So, stepping up to a Lorette door and over the threshold, to happen upon a bright, berry-eyed, deft-fingered woman with sure and certain strokes tacking a canvas over the frame of a canoe, the boat that typifies Canada, was like coming unannounced upon the spirit personality of the land itself.
Ma’am’selle was all graciousness; at the same time artist enough not to lay down her tools but kept at work as she talked—tapping punctuations with her little hammer that had a character of its own, taken on by age and much use.
“Mais oui.” Many years she had worked at the canoe-making “avec mon père.” “Mais certainement” she liked it.
“Difficile? Mais non.”
The canvas went on as we watched—then the stem-bands. Ma’am’selle worked quickly but without haste, after the manner of an old hand. The stem-bands in place ma’am’selle rested and began to talk again.
“Would we not see the beginnings?”
“Oui? Then upstairs, mesdames.” This invitation was accompanied by a slight bow and a sweep with the hammer in hand towards a little pine-board stairs. And up we went to make the acquaintance of le bateau itself in its “beginnings”.
Have you seen a canoe in the making—the swift manipulations, the decided, skilful movements, in which every stroke counts? Have you seen the surety of the French-Huron hand at work at this inherited trade, how fingers, guided as if by magic, lay the thin, slim boards in place; how the knives swish through the wood at the desired length; how the little plane disappears in the maze of shavings it has created? A tap here, a nail there and the last plank is on.—A moment ago, it was a board lying on a bench. Now, it is—a canoe!