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Chapter Five
CENTRAL CANADA

The Indians inhabiting central Canada were expert builders of birch-bark canoes and produced many distinctive types. The area includes not only what are now the Provinces of Quebec (including Labrador), Ontario, Manitoba, and the eastern part of Saskatchewan, but also the neighboring northern portions of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota in the United States. The migrations of tribal groups within this large area in historical times, as well as the influence of a long-established fur trade, have produced many hybrid forms of bark canoes and, in at least a few instances, the transfer of a canoe model from one tribal group to another. It is this that makes it necessary to examine this area as a single geographic unit, although a wide variation of tribal forms of bark canoes existed within its confines.

The larger portion of the Indians inhabiting this area were of the great Algonkian family. In the east during the 18th and 19th centuries, however, some members of the Iroquois Confederacy were also found, and in the west, from at least as early as the beginning of the French fur trade, groups of Sioux, Dakota, Teton, and Assiniboin. From the fur trade as well as from normal migratory movements there was much intermingling of the various tribes, and it was long the practice in the fur trade, particularly in the days of the Hudson's Bay Company, to employ eastern Indians as canoemen and as canoe builders in the western areas. These apparently introduced canoe models into sections where they were formerly unknown; as a result, the tribal classification of bark canoes within the area under examination cannot be very precise and the range of each form cannot be stated accurately. It was in this area, too, that the historical canot du maître (also written maître canot), or great canoe, of the fur trade was developed.

Most of central Canada, except toward the extreme north in Quebec and toward the south below the Great Lakes, is in the area where the canoe birch was plentiful and of large size. There the numerous inland waterways, the Great Lakes, and the coastal waters of James and Hudson Bays make water travel convenient, and natural conditions require a variety of canoe models. Hence, when Europeans first appeared in this area they found already in existence a highly developed method of canoe transportation. This they immediately adopted as their own, and in the long period lasting until very recent times, during which the development of the northern portion of this area was slow, the canoe remained the most important means of forest travel.

In the northeastern portion of the area, including the Province of Quebec (with Labrador) from a line drawn from the head of James Bay eastwardly through Lake St. John and the Saguenay River Valley to the St. Lawrence and thence northward to the treeline in the sub-Arctic, dwelt the eastern branch of the far-ranging Cree tribe. Those living on the shores of Hudson and James Bays, along the west side of the Labrador Peninsula, were known as the Eastern, Swamp, or Muskeg Cree. To the north, at the Head of Ungava Bay, around Fort Chimo, and to the immediate southward, were the Nascapee, or Nascopie, supposedly related to the Eastern Cree. In southern Labrador and in Quebec along the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and for some distance inland, dwelt another related tribal group now known as the Montagnais.

Although the most recent canoe forms employed by these three Indian groups were very much the same, this may not have been the case earlier. A common canoe model in this area was the so-called "crooked canoe," in which there was a very marked fore-and-aft rocker to the bottom without a corresponding amount of sheer; as a result the canoe was much deeper amidships than near the ends. Another common model had a rather straight bottom fore and aft, with some lift near the ends and a corresponding amount of sheer. Between these was a hybrid which had some fore-and-aft rocker in the bottom and a very moderate sheer. Not until the 1870's was any detailed examination made of the canoes in this area; then it appeared that the crooked canoe might be the tribal model of the eastern Cree only, while the Nascapee employed a straight-bottom model, but it is possible that the examination was limited and that Nascapee use of the crooked canoe was simply not observed. By 1900, however, the crooked model was in use not only by the eastern Cree and the Nascapee but also by the Montagnais.

In the area around Fort Chimo and at the northern ranges of the eastern Cree and of the Montagnais the lack of good birch bark made it necessary to make up the bark cover out of many small pieces. This not only was laborious but made a rough and rather unsightly cover. Hence, some of the northern builders, particularly the Nascapee, substituted spruce bark, which was available in quite large sheets. The use of the spruce bark, however, did not cause any of these people to depart markedly from the model or the method of constructing birch-bark canoes, as it did for the Indians in the maritime area.

At the time (1908) when Adney was carefully observing the canoes in this area he found that both crooked and straight-bottom canoes were being used by all three tribal groups, but with a variation in midsection form among individual builders. Both types were built with a midsection that had a wide bottom and vertical sides, or, as an alternative, a narrow bottom and flaring sides. The end profile of all these canoes showed chin. In some crooked canoes the profile was apparently an arc of a circle, but in most canoes the form was an irregular curve. The stem met the gunwale in a marked peak rounded very slightly at the head, as the result of the method by which the stem was constructed, but in the hybrid model used by the Nascapee the ends were low and not much peaked and the quick upward rise of the sheer near the ends was lacking. In cross section all these canoes became V-shaped close to the ends, regardless of the midsection form. For the straight-bottom canoe and in the hybrid form this resulted in very sharp level lines, but the very great rocker of the crooked canoe brought the ends well above the normal line of flotation, so that this type was quite full-ended at the level line in spite of the V-section.

It is apparent upon examining the crooked canoe that there was actually less variation in its form, in spite of differences in midsection shape, than in that of the straight-bottom canoe, owing to its very great depth amidships in proportion to its width. This proportion made necessary a very moderate flare in the narrow-bottom midsection and resulted in a rather wall-sided appearance, even in this model. The hybrid form, which fell between the extremes of the crooked canoe and the straight-bottom canoe, had a narrow-bottomed flaring-sided midsection, and its relatively moderate depth made obvious the flare in the topsides and thus created a distinctive model.

Eastern Cree

The construction of canoes of the eastern Cree and related tribes seems generally like that of the Micmac craft. Instead of the gunwale method employed in the Maritime area, a building frame was used, and as a result the gunwales were longer than the bottom. In constructing the crooked canoe, the building frame must be heavily sheered, and there is evidence that the building bed was depressed amidships, rather than raised as was usual in the east. The great amount of rocker in the bottom in this form of Cree canoe made it necessary to block up the ends of the building frame to a very great height, and there was no need to raise the building bed at midlength, since the rocker extended the full length of the bottom. The bark cover had to be gored at closely spaced intervals to allow the rocker to be formed, and even in the straight-bottom model, the quick rise of the bottom near the ends required closely spaced gores there. In the straight-bottom model, however, the building bed was raised at midlength, as in eastern canoe-building, and the building frame was ballasted to a cupid's-bow profile, when on the bed, so as to achieve the combination of straight bottom amidships with sharply rising ends.

The gunwales were formed of the main gunwale member and a light gunwale cap, no outwale being employed. They were joined at the ends and, after hot water had been applied, were staked out with posts under the ends to obtain the required sheer. The thwarts were then tenoned into the main gunwales, though occasionally a canoe was built with "broken" gunwales, that is, the thwart-ends were let flush into the top and covered by the caps. Some builders did not spread the gunwales and place the thwarts until after the bark cover was lashed at the sheer; others used the eastern methods of assembling the gunwale structure prior to securing the bark cover at sheer. The bark cover was attached to the main gunwales with a continuous lashing, as in the Micmac canoes, but the bark was not always brought over the top of the gunwales. As a result, some canoes had a batten placed under the lashing, near the edge of the cover, to prevent the lashing from tearing away. Due to the lack of good root material, the lashing was often of rawhide. For all horizontal seams in the side panels of the bark cover, rawhide sewing over a root batten was used. The ends of the gunwales were supported by sprung headboards; in some canoes these were bellied toward the ends to such a degree that they almost paralleled the end profiles.

The ends were formed by means of the same technique used for Micmac canoes; no inside stem-piece was employed and the bark cover was stiffened by outside battens covered by the lashing. In the Cree canoes, however, the stem battens were "broken" sharply at the sheer to form a slightly rounded peak where the end met the gunwale caps. The "break" in the battens was made by bending them very sharply, so that they were almost fractured. The Cree practice also differed from that of the Micmac, although not universally, by passing the lower end of the stem batten through the bark cover at the point where the stem met the bottom. The slit thus made was sealed with gum or, more recently, covered with cloth impregnated with gum. The stems were lashed in various ways; the most common was a spiral form up to the sheer. Near the gunwale caps crossed stitches or small, closely spaced wrappings were also employed. The tops of the battens, forming the peak of the stem, were brought along under the rail caps, in line with the gunwale lashings inboard, and secured with a continuous lashing for about 6 inches. In the northern parts of the area under discussion the stem lashing was often of rawhide.

Gunwale caps were wider than the gunwales and thus gave some protection to the lashing there. The ends of the gunwale caps were heavily tapered to allow the sharp bends necessary to carry them out on the stems. They were pegged or nailed to the gunwales, but at the ends were lashed; usually with two or three small group lashings over and under the stem battens, below the caps.

The most recent canoes had canvas covers instead of bark. Nails, tacks, and twine for sewing were used; otherwise they were built as the Indians built birch- and spruce-bark craft, and not as white men built canvas canoes and boats.

The framework of the canoes was usually spruce or larch. Toward the south and along the St. Lawrence some white cedar was used, and in the south maple was sometimes used for thwarts. The ribs of the canoes inspected by Adney were usually about 3 inches wide, and a short taper brought them to about 2 inches at the ends, where they were cut square across. They were spaced about 1 inch apart edge-to-edge amidships and somewhat further apart toward the ends of the canoe. The canoes usually had an odd number of ribs, as the first was placed under the thwart amidships. The last three ribs at the ends were "broken" at the centerline to allow them to take the necessary V-section there; but the fourth rib from each end was only sharply bent. In some canoes the heel of the very narrow headboard was stepped on the sheathing against the endmost rib, in others it was stepped, as in the Micmac canoes, on a frog which rested against the endmost rib.

In more recent times the sheathing was laid in one of two ways, according to the preference of the builder, but the existence of the two styles suggests that each was once a tribal-group method. One method of shaping the bottom sheathing was to employ a center, or keelson, piece in two lengths, the butts being overlapped amidships, parallel-sided except toward the stems, where it was tapered to fit the V-sections rather closely. The next strake outboard was short and was in the form of a shallow triangle with its base along the middle portion of the first strakes and about one-third the length of the bottom. Its apex was under the middle thwart. The next strake outboard was in two lengths lapped amidships, parallel sided along the arms of the triangular strake, and snied off at the ends to fit along the sides of the first strake. Another strake outboard of this was similar in form and position, but longer. Thus seven strake widths would complete the bottom sheathing. The side sheathing was narrow and slightly tapered; each strake in two lengths overlapped slightly amidships. The ends of the topside sheathing ran well into the ends, in most canoes, where they apparently served as stiffening. The second method of sheathing employed parallel-sided strakes throughout, laid side by side on the bottom, with the ends snied off to fit the form of the bark bottom. The existence of a model canoe made about 1850 (see p. 91) supports the theory that the first method was originally the Montagnais tribal construction and that the more primitive second method was probably Cree or Nascapee.

The ribs were preformed and fitted to the canoe after drying out. They were bent to the desired shape in pairs and tied with a thong across the ends to hold their shape while drying. Some builders inserted a strut inside the bent ribs, parallel to the thong, protecting the surface of the inner rib by a pad of bark placed under each end of the strut. The pair of ribs might also be wrapped with a bark cord to help hold them together. To aid in handling, one pair of ribs might be nested inside another. As in eastern canoes the ribs under the gunwales were driven into place. At the ends they were canted toward the center, so that in the straight-bottom models they stood nearly perpendicular to the rocker of the bottom there; in the crooked canoe the ribs were all somewhat canted in this manner.

The paddles used in this area were made with parallel-sided blades, the end of the blade being almost circular. The handle might be fitted with a wide grip at the head or it might be pole-ended. It is impossible to say how early sails were used to propel canoes, but it is probable they were introduced by the fur traders. Square sails were being used on the coastal canoes at the time the earliest reference was made to these canoes, in the 1870's.

Little is known about the decorations employed by the eastern Cree. The Montagnais birch-bark model canoe of about 1850 (see p. 91) has three small circles placed in a triangular position on the bow and a band along the bottom of the side panels. The circles and the bands are in red paint, but may have been intended to represent the dark inner rind left after scraping the winter bark cover. The use of decoration in this area after 1850 has not been noted in any available reference.

As a rule, the straight-bottom canoes were small, commonly between 12 and 18 feet overall, and the most popular size was 14 to 16 feet overall. A canoe of this size was usually employed as a hunters' canoe for forest travel, though it might be used occasionally along the coasts. These canoes were light and, in this respect, resembled the Micmac models shown in Chapter 4.

The original purpose of the crooked canoe is in question. Those travelers who saw this canoe in use on the Hudson Bay side of the Labrador Peninsula believed that it was designed for use in rough, exposed water. While it would be a desirable form for beach work in surf, the high ends would make paddling against strong winds very difficult. On the other hand the Montagnais used the crooked canoe for river navigation, particularly where rapids were to be run, and for this work it appears to have been well adapted. The crooked canoe was commonly built larger than the straight-bottom model, between 16 and 20 feet in length overall, and was a vessel of burden rather than a hunting canoe. Canoes up to 28 feet in length have been mentioned by travelers in this area but investigation indicates strongly that these were not the tribal form but the canot du nord, or north canoe of the Hudson's Bay Company traders.

Along the southern borders of their territory and to the westward the eastern Cree often built and used canoes modeled on those of their neighbors, the Têtes de Boule and the Ojibway. Hence the tribal classification does not hold good in these localities. Also, the eastern Cree were employed by the Hudson's Bay Company as builders of forms of the maître canot and canot du nord that are unlike their typical tribal model.

Têtes de Boule

The Têtes de Boule, particularly the western bands, were skilled canoe builders and had long been employed by the Hudson's Bay Company in the construction of large fur-trade canoes. Apparently made up of bands of Indians inhabiting lower Quebec, in the basin of the St. Maurice River and on the Height of Land, these bands had come down to the lower Ottawa River to trade with the local Algonkin tribe there in early times. They were known to the Algonkins, who had had some contact with civilization, as "wild Indians." They also came into close trading relations with the French colonists, as the Ottawa River was the early French canoe route between Montreal and Lake Superior. Because they cut their hair short, unlike the other Indians, these northern bands were nicknamed "Bull Heads," or "Round Heads," by the French traders, and the tribesmen soon came to accept this rather than their own designation of "White Fish People" as the tribal name. In more recent times, the name has been applied to groups of Indians living in western Quebec Province, near Lake Barrière and Grand Lake Victoria, but these do not consider themselves related to the St. Maurice bands.

It seems apparent that the canoe models of all these groups had been altered as a result of long contact with other tribal groups. Although the St. Maurice and the western bands were apparently not of the same tribal stock, their relations with the Algonkin may have brought about the use of a standard model by all.

The Têtes de Boule lived in an area where very superior materials for birch-bark canoe construction were plentiful. This, with the need for canoes imposed by the numerous waterways and the demand for canoes from white traders, made many of the tribesmen expert builders. Their small canoes, ranging from the 8-to 12-foot hunter's canoes to the 14-to 16-foot family canoes, were very similar in profile to the canoes of the St. Francis Abnaki. The Têtes de Boule canoes, however, were commonly narrower on the bottom, and in their construction a building frame was always used. The Têtes de Boule model was straight along the bottom for better than half the length and then rose rather quickly toward the ends. Similarly, the sheer was moderate amidships and increased toward the ends. The stems showed a chin and were much peaked at the gunwale ends. Most commonly the midsection had a flat bottom athwartships and a well-rounded bilge, giving the topsides, near the gunwale, a very slight outward flare. Some Têtes de Boule canoes had rather V-section ends in which the endmost rib was "broken" at the centerline. As a result the lines were sharp and the canoes paddled very easily.

For construction of the Têtes de Boule canoe, which was marked by good structural design and neat workmanship, the building bed was slightly raised at midlength, as was the general practice of the St. Francis builders. The building frame was usually about 6 inches less in width amidships, inside to inside, than were the gunwales, and from 15 to 18 inches shorter. The building frame was made quite sharp toward the ends so that, viewed from above, it rather approached a diamond form; this produced the very sharp lines that are to be seen in many examples of the Têtes de Boule canoes. The building frame was of course removed from the canoe as soon as the gunwales were in place and the bark cover lashed to them.

The gunwale structure, comprised of main gunwale members, caps, and outwales, was the same as in the Malecite canoes. The main gunwales were rectangular in cross-section, some being almost square, with the lower outboard corner bevelled off. Compared to those of eastern canoes of equal length, the main gunwales were unusually light; their depth and width rarely exceeded 1 inch, and in very small hunter's canoes these were often only about ¾ inch. Toward the ends, they tapered to ½ inch, or even slightly less. The ends of the main gunwales, usually of the common half-arrowhead form, were held together by rawhide or root thongs passed back and forth through horizontal holes in the members. After being thus lashed together, they were securely wrapped with thongs which usually went over gunwales and outwales and through the bark cover.

The gunwale caps, also light, were usually between ¼ and ½ inch thick and from 1 to 1½ inches wide. At the ends they were tapered in width and thickness, often to ³⁄₁₆ by ½ inch, so as to follow the quickly rising sheer there. The ends of the gunwales, caps, and outwales required hot-water treatment to obtain the required curve of the sheer. The caps were pegged to the gunwales and were secured at each end with two or three groups of lashings which passed around the outwales as well, and through the bark cover.

The outwales were likewise light battens between ¼ and ½ inch thick and from ¾ to 1¼ inches deep, the depth near the ends being tapered to ⅜ to ¾ inch so as to sheer correctly.

The bark cover had four or five vertical gores on each side of the middle thwart, the gore nearest each stem being commonly well inboard of the end thwarts. The side panels were usually deep amidships and narrowed toward the ends. A root batten was used under the stitching of the longitudinal seams of the side panels, which were sewn with a harness-maker's stitch. The top edge of the bark cover was brought over the top of the main gunwales, as in the Malecite canoes, and was secured by group wrappings passing over the gunwales and outwales, under the caps. These groups were not independent, the root thong being carried from group to group outside the bark in a long pass under the outwales. The groups of seven to nine turns were roughly an inch apart in many small canoes, and perhaps 1½ inches in the large craft. In the last birch-bark canoes in which no nails or tacks were used, wrappings of root thongs began with a stop knot, but this does not appear to have been the earlier practice.

The Têtes de Boule canoes had inside stem-pieces split, according to the size of the canoe, in four to six laminations and lashed with a bark or root thong in an open spiral in some canoes but close-wrapped in others. The stem-piece was as in the Malecite canoes, except that it ended under the rail cap, and did not pass through it as in the Eastern canoes; the heel was notched to receive the heel of the headboard. The bark was usually lashed through the stem, as in the Malecite construction. However, in some Têtes de Boule canoes, the stem close to the heel was not laminated and the bark was lashed to the solid part by an in-and-out stitch passing through closely spaced holes drilled in the stem piece. Above this, the lashing was the usual spiral which, in at least a few instances, was passed through the bark just inboard of the stem piece. Near the top of the stem the lashings sometimes were rather widely spaced and passed inboard of the stem-pieces; at other times, however, these lashings were more closely spaced and passed through the stem.

Ordinarily, at the ends of the canoe no wulegessis, or covers of bark, were used under the gunwale caps, although in one example examined a small cover had been inserted over the gunwale ends and under the caps, it did not extend below the outwales to form a wulegessis. In some canoes the bark cover was pieced up at the peak of the stems by a panel whose bottom faired into the bottom of the side panels.

A variety of methods was used to fit the gunwale caps at the ends of the canoe. Some builders carried the cap out beyond the gunwale ends, flat, over the edges of the bark cover and the top face of the outwale, but others tilted the cap outboard and downward. The ends of the caps came flush with the face of the stems. In an apparently late variation, the gunwales, instead of ending in the half-arrowhead, were snied off the inside and a triangular block was inserted between the ends. The gunwales were then pegged or nailed to the block and the whole secured with a root wrapping around them, before the outwales were in place. The first turn began by passing the root through a hole in the block near its inboard end, with a stop knot in the root.

The ends of the gunwales were supported by a narrow headboard sharply bellied toward the end of the canoe. The top of the headboard was notched to stand under the main gunwales; the center portion often was carried high and ended with a cylindrical top that was slightly swelled like the handle of a gouge or chisel. The heel was sometimes held in the stem-piece notch with a root lashing.

The thwarts, spaced equal distances apart, were tenoned into the gunwales as in the old Malecite canoes, and were secured with a peg and lashing through the two holes in the thwart ends. The middle thwart was usually formed with a shoulder, viewed in plan, that started 6 or 7 inches inboard of the inside face of the main gunwale. In form, this thwart usually swelled outward in a straight line from the tenon shoulder, then reduced in a curved line to about the width of the tenon tongue and, finally, increased again in a right-angle cut to the greatest width. From here it was reduced again in a long curve to the canoe's center line. The other thwarts usually had simple ends, wide at the tenon shoulder and reduced in a long curve to a narrow center. In elevation, all the thwarts were thin outboard and thick at the centerline of the canoe. The cross section of the center thwart at the centerline was square or nearly so, the first thwart on each side was rectangular in cross section at the center, and the end thwarts were similar, but very thin.

The sheathing of the Têtes de Boule canoes was thin, particularly at the ends of the strakes. The bottom was laid with a parallel-sided center strake going in first. This strake was in two lengths in a small canoe and three lengths in a large, the butts overlapping slightly. The rest of the strakes in the bottom were tapered toward the ends of the canoe. At the extremities of the canoe, the narrow ends of the strakes were very thin and overlapped along their edges, the bottom sheathing, when in place, thus following the diamond form of the building frame. The topside sheathing was laid up in short lengths with overlapping butts and edges in an irregular plan, those strakes along the bilges being longer than above. Toward the ends of the canoe these strakes were slightly tapered and the edges were very thin. The sheathing ended irregularly, outboard of the headboards, in narrow butts as in most eastern canoes.

The ribs, like the rest of the structure, were very light, usually ¼ to ⅜ inch thick and from about 1¼ to 1¾ inches wide, depending upon the size of the canoe. A few examples had ribs 2 inches wide, and still fewer had ribs up to 2½ inches wide. The spacing was usually close, somewhat more than an inch edge to edge amidships and a little more between the end thwarts and the headboards. The spacing amidships would average perhaps 3¼ inches, center to center. The ends of the ribs, in the last 2 or 3 inches, were reduced in width very sharply in a hollow, curved taper to ½ to ¾ inch wide, and were usually beveled on the inside edge. The thickness was also reduced by a cut on the inside, so that the ends were chisel-pointed with a short bevel on the inboard side. The rib ends were forced between the main gunwales and the bark cover, coming home in the bevel of the lower outboard edge of the main gunwales between the group lashings of the bark cover as in the Malecite canoes. The ribs were not prebent but were placed in the canoe when green, treated with hot water, and then allowed to dry into place. In preparing the rib, it was first bent over the knee. It was the custom of some builders to place under the building frame the ribs that were to go near the ends of the canoe, and to mark the point where they would be bent. Sometimes the endmost ribs that were to be "broken" at the centerline to form the V-section were split edgewise. A piece of the inner lamina was then cut out to one side of the center so that the inner laminae would lie flat against each other, and to prevent the inner half from buckling the rib was wrapped with a thong to one side of the "break."

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.

The high-ended model, the oldest form known to have been used by this tribe, was narrow-bottomed, with flaring sides. The canoes seen were built with careful workmanship and in the old manner, without iron fastenings. They were light and easily paddled, yet would carry a heavy load. The ends were sharp at the line of flotation. The bottom was straight to a point near the ends, where it lifted somewhat. The sheer was rather straight over the middle portion of the canoe, then lifted slightly until close to the stem, where it rose sharply, becoming almost perpendicular at the ends of the rail caps. The midsection was slightly rounded across the bottom, with a well-rounded bilge and a gently flaring topside. The cross-section became V-shaped close to the headboards. The most marked feature in the appearance of this canoe was the profile of the ends. The stem line, beginning with a slight angle where it joined the bottom, bent outward in a gentle curve, reaching the perpendicular at a point a little more than half the height of the end, and from there it tumbled home slightly. In most of the canoes examined the top of the stem then rounded inboard in a quick, hard curve, usually almost half a circle, so that the stem was turned downward as it joined the outwale and gunwale cap. In a variation of this stem form, the top of the stem was cut off almost square, forming a straight line that ran parallel to the rise of the bottom below the stems to the point where it would meet the upturned outwale and cap. The ends of the outwales and caps were thus 3 or 4 inches inboard of the extremities. This form of stem, particularly when to top was rounded in a half-circle, approached the basic form of the ends of the fur-trade canoe.

All the examples of this form of canoe that were examined were small, from 14 to a little over 16 feet in length overall, but this is not proof that larger canoes of this type had not existed earlier.

The later and more common form of Algonkin canoe was the wabinaki chiman. A corruption of Abnaki, wabinaki to the later Algonkin meant the Malecite as well as the St. Francis Indians. The wabinaki chiman was built in lengths from 12 to 18 feet.

Iroquois living in the Algonkin territory during the period built this form of canoe as well as the older, high-ended form. The wabinaki chiman was very much like the St. Francis and Malecite canoes in appearance, but it was not an exact copy. The Algonkin version was commonly a narrow-bottom canoe with flaring topsides. There was some variation in the end profiles; most had the rather high, peaked ends of the St. Francis canoe. The sheer was rather straight until near the end, where it rose rapidly to the stem. The stem was rounded and was faired into the bottom. The top of the stem was often rather straight and tumbled home slightly, but on some it raked outward, much as did the stem of some Malecite canoes.

Another form of Algonkin canoe had a low sheer with only a slight lift toward the ends. In this canoe the stem might have a short, hard curve at the heel and an upper portion that was quite straight and slightly tumbled home; or the full height might be well rounded, with a slight tumble-home near the stem head.

In appearance these canoes were very like the straight-stem Malecite models. The wabinaki chiman was unquestionably copied from the eastern canoes that came into popularity among the Algonkin late in the 19th century, when white sportsmen were demanding canoes of the St. Francis and Malecite models. However, the Algonkin canoes differed somewhat from the eastern canoes not only in model but also in methods of construction.

Algonkins used the same construction methods in both their canoe models, though the framework was not alike in all respects. The building frame was always used. For a 2-or 2½-fathom canoe this was made of two strips of cedar, 1½ inches wide and ¾ inch deep, that were bent edgewise, notched, and tied together at the ends with thongs of the inner bark of the basswood. These strips were held apart in the required shape by cedar crosspieces 1 inch wide and 1¾ inches deep, with the ends notched ¾ inch deep (the depth of the longitudinals) and the tops well rounded. The crosspieces, five in all, were fastened to the longitudinals with thongs passing through holes in the ends. The middle one was about 19½ inches between the inside faces of the longitudinals, those on each side of it were about 15½ inches long by similar measure, and the end ones were nearly 6 inches long and were located a foot or so from the extremities of the longitudinals. The outside width of the building frame amidships would thus be about 22½ or 23 inches.

The building bed was level, with a 6-inch-wide board, some 6 to 8 feet in length, sunk into the earth flush with the surface to insure a true line for the bottom. The outside stakes were of the usual sort described in building the Malecite canoe (pp. 40-41). The wedge-shaped inside stakes, or clamp pieces, were 1½ inches wide, 1 inch thick, and 20 to 25 inches long. The posts for setting the height of the gunwales at the ends and at the crosspieces were not cut off square at the top as for the Malecite canoe, but were notched on the outside to take the gunwales. The heights of the posts were graduated, of course, to form the required sheer in the gunwales. Like the canoes of the Têtes de Boule, these of the Algonkin were generally less deep amidships than the general run of eastern canoes.

Building procedure was as follows: The gunwales were made, bent, and the ends fastened, but instead of being mortised and fitted with thwarts, they were spread by temporary crosspieces, or "spalls," made of a splint, or plank-on-edge, with the lower edge notched in two places to take the gunwale members. Sometimes the spalls were lashed, pegged or nailed to the gunwales as well. The stakes were set along the building frame and these were generally driven sloping, so that their heads stood outboard of the points. They were then pulled and laid aside, the building frame was removed, and the bark cover placed on the building bed. After the building frame has been reset in its original position and the bark cover turned up along the sides, the stakes were again driven in their holes. The cover was then pieced out with side panels as necessary and gored, and longitudinal strips of wood were set in place by means of the clamp pieces, about as in Malecite construction. The gunwales were then placed on the posts, which had been set to the required sheer, and the bark trimmed and fitted to them. The old method was to lash the bark to the main gunwale members and to peg on the outwales at intervals of about a foot. In earlier times most builders inserted along the gunwales an extra reinforcing strip of bark extending a little below the outwales, as in the St. Francis canoes, but in the nailed-and-tacked bark canoes built during the decadent period this was sometimes omitted.