Woles

An now expired Ebay ad featured  a circa 1890 albumen stereoview image. Captioned  as "...Five canoes Starting from Island Portage", it shows a group of men with their bark canoes loaded with gear. Publisher T.W. Ingersoll was located in St. Paul, Minnesota but there is no additional information on the specific location of the shot. There must be thousands of Island Portages out there.



Unfortunately, no clear views of the paddles being used are visible (unlike a similar scene from an 1895 Canadian Geological survey photo - post here). But a guide in the foreground is tumping a large pack cloth roll along with sacs of supplies thrown on for good measure...

There's a tendency to think of the birchbark canoe as dominating New England, the northern states west to about Minnesota, and the bordering Canadian provinces west to about the same longitude. At the same time, we think of the dugout canoe as dominating the Pacific northwest, the south Atlantic states, and the Mississippi River valley...and never the twain shall meet.

It wasn't really quite that neat. In the Northeast, for example, Maine represents the southernmost range in which the white birch grows to sufficient size to produce canoe skins. Nice sheets of canoe bark were a valuable trade item, exported by Indians from Maine and Quebec to nearby states, and so some bark canoe building did occur somewhat south of Maine. But dugouts were much more widely used than bark canoes throughout most of New England, including southwestern Maine.

Let's start in prehistory. Although the date for the invention of the birchbark canoe is in dispute (some say it might have been just prior to European contact; others place it some 500 or 600 years earlier), it is clear that dugouts were widely used throughout coastal Maine prior to that, including areas that would later become birchbark country. As far back as the Early Archaic (10,000 to 8,000 BP), tools such as gouges and whetstones were in use -- tools that may well have been used to hollow tree trunks for canoes. By the Moorehead phase (6,000 to 4,000 BP) of the Middle Archaic, there is clearer evidence. Finds of numerous swordfish bills and quantities of cod and seal bones in archaeologically excavated coastal settlement sites are sure indicators that the people were venturing away from the shore, and since the bark canoe certainly did not exist at that time, the dugout is the only craft in which they could have done so.

The earliest dugout of which I've read from the region we're discussing (New England through the U.S. midwest, and adjacent Canadian provinces) is a 2,000-year old example discovered in Lake Mary, Kenosha County, Wisconsin.

In 1634, the poet William Wood, who produced the first detailed map of southern New England, described dugout building in Massachusetts, writing that they were not greater than 2' wide and about 20' long. An eastern white pine dugout discovered in Weymouth, Massachusetts in 1965 (image at top of post) measured 11' x 2 ' 11" and has been dated to about 1500 A.D. -- i.e., before European contact. Three dugouts found in 2001 near Worcester, Massachusetts, date to the mid-1600s -- a time at which contact had occurred, but may not have yet significantly influenced the Nipmucs living some 75 miles west of Plymouth. For details on this find, which is an active achaeological project, see Project Mishoon.) A pine canoe found on Lake Ossipee, New Hampshire, and owned by the Museum of New Hampshire's History, has been dated to between 1430 and 1660.

In 1643, Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, described the local dugout canoe, or mishoon:

Mishoon an Indian boat or Canow made of a Pine or Oake, or Chestnut-tree: I have scene a Native goe into the woods with his hatchet, carrying onely a Basket of Come with him, and stones to strike fire when he hadJeld his tree (being a chestnut) he made him a little House or shed of the bark of it, he puts fire andfollowes the burning of it with fire, in the midst of many places. his come he boyles and hath the Brooke by him, and sometimes Angles for a little fish; but so tree continues burning and hewing untill he bath within ten or twelve dayes (lying there at his worke alone) finished and (getting hands) ranched his Boater with which afterward tree ventures out toflsh in the Ocean.... Some of lthe canoesl will not well carry above three or foure: but some of them twenty, thirty, forty men.... Their owne reason hath taught them, to pull of a Coat or two and set it up on a small pole, with which they will saile before a wind ten, or twenty mile.... It is wonderfull to see how they will Denture in those Canoes, and how (being oft overset as I have my selfe been with them) they will swim a mile, yea two or more safe to Land I having been necessitated to passe waters diverse times with them, it hath pleased God to make them many times the instruments of my preservation. and when sometimes In great danger I have questioned safety, they have said to me: Feare not, if we be overset I will carry you safe to Land.... (this quote taken in full from Rhode Island Sea Grant, here).

In a series of posts (titled, confusingly, Michigan's Whitewood Canoes, Whitewood Dugout Canoes VI, and Whitewood Canoes VII) on his inactive but still present eponymous blog, Jim Woodruff explains that southern Michigan was south of the range for canoe birch, but within the northern limit of the range of the tuliptree or yellow poplar, known to settlers as whitewood. Early settlers found very large whitewood dugouts in wide use there by the local Pottawatomie people, being used even for lengthy voyages on Lake Michigan. In contrast, the Chippewas or Ojibwas in northern Michigan were bark canoe builders, but they too were known to build and use dugouts. A 30-footer was acquired by a Euro-American from a Chippewa in 1837 and, in 1864, a large number of dugouts were built and used for a Chippewa migration. Whether this was an expedient due to pressure from Euro-American settlers, or an established element of their material culture, is not clear from Woodruff's post. (In the migration incident cited, the canoes were built somewhat inland, and hauled by wagon to the nearest waterway -- obviously not part of the indigenous technology.)

Woodruff goes on to argue that the dugouts used in Michigan were not as cumbersome as is often supposed -- he cites evidence that they were at least sometimes portaged. (Tuliptree is a particularly lightweight wood, and dugouts can be hewn to sufficient thinness so that they aren't outside the range of what even today's canoeists might consider portagable.) And he notes the one great advantage of the dugout: its toughness. One can drag a dugout over rocks and snags that would hole a birchbark canoe.

Finally, a paper by Edward S. Rogers ("The Dugout Canoe in Ontario", American Antiquity, Vol. 30, #4, April 1965) describes 18 dugouts in that province, ranging from 10' to 20'3", and built of basswood, pine, and possibly poplar. The paper found instances of both native and European construction of dugouts in Ontario. It was unable to determine unambiguously whether dugouts were used prehistorically or if they were a technological adoption by Indians in the historic period. Regardless, it appears that dugouts were not rare in Ontario even into the early 20th century.

(The image at the top of this post shows the dugout discovered in 1965 near Weymouth, Massachusetts, and on display in the Tufts Library in Weymouth. It is from The New England Indians: An Illustrated Sourcebook of Authentic Details of Everyday Indian Life, 2nd ed., by C. Keith Wilbur. Link below.)

In my never ending search for more material on birchbark canoes, I've assembled some notable YouTube links below:

The most comprehensive video is telemarkfreak's fantastic video on his bark canoe build. Absolutely spectacular boat complete with beautiful winter bark etching and a technique I'll definitely be using - duct tape on the seams while gumming to give a clean, crisp seal. In addition, he built his boat in his garage on a building platform like mine and seems to have used a propane stove to boil water for the rib bending process.






A preview video of Earl Nyholm, an Ojibwe Elder, shows him and his colleagues wandering through the forest on Madeleine Island, Wisconsin in search of perfect canoe bark. Intersting for me was the harvesting a single sheet from a standing tree using a huge ladder and a helper on the ground to prevent it from buckling. It's part of a documentary entitled Earl's Canoe that I haven't fully seen, but looks interesting.






This one by tigertensing shows the maiden launch of an Ojibwe longnose style canoe. Great footage of the clean lashings and the gumming of the underneath of the hull. Like my boat, this one is made of panels rather that a single sheet so this video gives me confidence that my canoe can still be watertight with this construction technique. I had to chuckle at the actual launch at the end though because the the stern passenger nearly tips the boat as he plops himself down right as a wave slams against the side of the canoe...not the most graceful entry I've ever seen. Though they save the day with some creative back paddling for a pass by the shore. Shouldn't be one to jest however, as I'm sure I'll be the laughing stock of the lake if I flip my boat on the maiden voyage next summer.





Destination Nor'Ouest was historical documentary that aired back in 'o6 on French Canadian TV. It recreated the Voyageur experience as the group of six men and three women, with authentic period clothing and equipment, journeyed 2,500 km in authentic bark canoes from Montreal to Winnipeg. Haven't seen all 8 episodes but the trailer looks amazing. Watch for the shot when the massive Canot du Nord splits in half while caught up in some modern-day channel with a horrendous current.

Ancient Pathways Cultural Resource Group has some great photos & info about various native crafts including an interesting album documenting construction of an Elm Bark Canoe.

These canoes, according to Adney, tended to be more fragile, temporary craft used by Iroquois tribes of the northern U.S. before their incursion into more northern lands where birchbark canoes were predominant. There are some similarities with birchbark canoe construction, although one major difference is the use of crimping with elm bark in order to maintain the hull shape. This is apparently a necessity since elm bark cannot be cut with longitudinal gores as birch bark can. This boat also needed fewer ribs, no sheathing and has functional, but more crudely formed lashings on the square-edged end pieces. The builders, Kevin Finney and Erik Vosteen, did a great job with it so thank you to them for posting some of this native knowledge.

I've posted a few pics below - the full album has many more shots.


Bark Foldup


The completed end lashing


Installing Ribs


The completed elm bark canoe