In transportation facilities the Amerinds were extremely deficient, the Eskimo excelling all others in this direction. This was the result of environment and does not indicate superiority of the Eskimo over other stocks. They had vast treeless plains and ice sheets to traverse, and the sledge was a necessity. Dogs all Amerinds had, and some of them used them, to a certain extent, for beasts of burden, so that there was not a great deal of invention required to attach one or several to the sledge. On the other hand, most Amerinds were not so situated that they could utilise the dog in this way, and the continent offered them no substitute for it unless, as has been suspected, some of the South-western tribes may have had an animal resembling the vicuna, which they kept for its wool and presumably for transportation purposes also. But there is as yet no trustworthy evidence of this, and it may be said that the Amerinds of North America as a race possessed no beast of burden but the dog. In time, had the bison not been exterminated, and provided also that the whites had not come, it is possible that this animal might have been domesticated for milk, for meat, and for draught purposes. But the bison, after all, was ill adapted to work, for he is clumsy, so that the Amerind really had only the dog that was practicable, and this he utilised as far as possible, or at least as far as necessity directed. The Amerinds encountered on the plains of Texas in 1540 by Coronado were using the dog,[244] just as they afterward used the horse, for transporting tents and tent poles. A great many different forms of sledge are in use among the Eskimo, and besides the regular sledges, walrus skins, rolls of sealskins, and even packs of salmon are sometimes used for the purpose. When skins are used they are soaked with fresh water and sewed in a bag which is given the desired shape and then allowed to freeze solid, in which condition it remains till the return of warm weather. The Eskimo is never troubled with a “January thaw.” Sometimes sledges are made out of slabs of fresh-water ice frozen together; or blocks of ice are hollowed out. The runners of the ordinary sledge are usually made of driftwood and are from five to fifteen feet long and twenty inches to two and a half feet apart. The runners are connected by crossbars of wood or bone and are shod with whalebone, ivory, jawbone of whale, and sometimes with frozen fish. The shoe is either tied or riveted in place, and the parts are generally tied together, though now iron nails are sometimes used. When there is a back to the sledge it is made, in the Central regions, of wood or of deer or caribou antlers. Very small sleds are used for running boats out of water, and their runners are often single walrus tusks, the rest being of any wood obtainable. “The dog harness consists of a broad band or strap of stout rawhide, with three parallel loops at one end.... The head is passed through the middle loop, and a foreleg through each of the side loops, bringing the main part of the thong over the back.”[245] This is the trace, and by means of a toggle it is fastened to a long line that runs back to the sledge and connects all the dogs with it. The Central Eskimo make two bights passing under the forelegs, joined by two straps across the neck and breast. The dogs are not driven in Alaska,[246] but they are in the Central and Eastern regions, and Boas asserts that silence must be maintained during the journey, for the dogs will stop, turn around, sit down, and listen to any conversation that is carried on. The dogs are wolf-like in appearance, but are not given to barking. Indeed, they seem to pay little attention to a stranger. A long whip is used for touching them up when on the sledge. Steering is done by the legs of the driver. In the late spring, when there are sharp ice needles, a sort of leather boot, with holes for the nails, is tied to the dogs’ feet to keep them from getting sore. In summer-time they have an easy life of it. The Alaska sledge has no back, but has a rail on each side.

“The sleds of the Chippewayan,” says Mason, “are formed of thin slips of board, turned up in front, and are highly polished.”[247] This is the toboggan, or Amerind sled without runners, developed and used in the region lying between that occupied by the Eskimo and about the northern limit of the United States. Dogs were attached to the toboggan by some tribes, as the Tinne, who also used the dogs in summer as pack animals. The toboggan, however, was usually pulled by men, and its object was the transportation of a load which would otherwise need to be carried. It was made of a single thin plank, or of two, fastened together on the upper surface with battens, and having the forward end turned up and over like a letter C and fixed in this position by rawhide cords attached properly to the first cross batten, and sometimes a rawhide line is also carried back to the last batten to give additional strength. The toboggan is now in common use among the whites of America, especially the Canadians.

In pulling the toboggan over the snow the traveller would sink deep and become tired with only ordinary foot covering, so the Amerind invented a shoe expressly for snow travel. This is familiar to almost everybody, but a brief description will be added for the sake of those who may not have seen it. There are two kinds of snow-shoe; those represented by the Norwegian ski, made of wood, long and slender, and not used in America before their introduction from Europe. The only wooden shoe recorded is an Eskimo one made in the same shape as their others. The other kind of snow-shoe[248] is the Amerind one made by bending to an oval shape a slender piece of wood for a frame, and filling the interval with rawhide netting; and it was in use all over North America, where snow remained for any length of time. Among some tribes these shoes were “rights and lefts,” but as a rule they were interchangeable. They are generally the shape of a long, pointed oval, but some are almost round. There are two crossbars to hold the frame in shape, and also to form supports for the toe and heel. Some shoes were four or five feet long and seven or eight inches wide, and turned up at the forward end, while others were short and broad and not turned up, the interval between being filled by a series in great variety. The foot is held in position by suitable thongs or straps. These shoes are now in common use by the whites.

In summer the means of travel, before the horse came with the European, were, on land, nothing more than a good pair of legs, but, on the water, it was different. There, many of the Amerinds were at home, for they had some of the most admirable small boats ever devised. Chief of these, for lightness and grace, is the birchbark canoe,[249] though the Eskimo kayak is not far behind it. The birchbark canoe is made in various sizes and in different tribes has variations, but the type is the same everywhere. There is a slender, well-made frame of wood, consisting of ribs, gunwales, and stiffening strips, over which the bark, which has previously been sewed together, is stretched. The bow is a trifle broader across the beam than the stern, but both are pointed. The bark covering is rendered water-tight, where there are holes or seams, with pine gum. The paddle is similar to the paddle in use everywhere by the Amerinds, having a sort of T-shaped top to the handle, and being about five feet long and four to six inches wide. This kind of canoe was made wherever there was birchbark and water to float it. Another form of boat which was universal was the dugout canoe. This varied in size and shape according to locality, and was always hollowed out of a single tree, by fire and by gouging. When completed it was spread open wider, so that one of these boats has the appearance of being from a larger tree than is the case. The finest dugout canoes are those of the North-west coast, where they are constructed from cedar trees of huge proportions. One of these canoes, made by the Haidas, now in the American Museum in New York, is almost a ship and could be navigated in stormy waters. The Haida canoes are often elaborately carved. Farther up the coast the Tlinkits are experts likewise in canoe building and in the management of them. Their canoes are also hollowed from single logs. Many of them are small, being barely large enough for two persons. Some have a peculiar projection, a point sticking out from the lower part in line with the place where the keel would be if they had one, and also another at the top, rather square; that is, the wedge-like end is hollowed out in the middle. Either end is sent forward, but the prong end usually first. It seemed as if this projection might be intended to ward off ice, for it is in the regions of Yakutat and Glacier bays that it is the dominant type; and there ice is always floating from the glaciers. At Prince William Sound the baidarka,[250] or kayak, comes into use. This is certainly the perfection of a canoe. The frame is admirably made, being tied together and covered with walrus hide, or sealskin, and the boat rests on the sea seeming scarcely to sink into it. The umiak is the boat for travelling and general transportation. In it the whole family, or even two or three families, with all their trappings, journey about—dogs, children, packages, and adults all combined. In the sunlight its rich, translucent yellow colour is beautiful, and when filled with the good-natured, ruddy-cheeked Eskimo, clad in soft and elegant furs, the picture formed is one that is remembered ever after. In the Eastern regions it is termed the woman’s boat. They are usually about thirty feet long, five or six wide, and thirty inches deep. The ends are both rather pointed, and the bottom is flat. Sometimes there will be fifteen or twenty persons in one of the umiaks at the same time. The frame is on the same general principle as all other boats—that is, a combination of certain ribs, thwarts, braces, etc. All these pieces are lashed together, and when the skin covering is on, the umiak is a staunch and excellent craft, albeit it is entirely open. The cover is laced on, and in winter it is removed and stored away till the waters are open once more, when it is soaked in the sea to render it soft and again stretched in place.

The umiak[251] has a sail of the square sort, made in these days out of cotton, though formerly of seal intestine, which is attached to a yard. The mast is some twelve feet high. The paddles are about five feet long and six inches wide, though there are smaller ones also. Sometimes oars are used as well as the paddles in navigating the umiak. The kayak is made in the same way by stretching skins over a wood frame tied together most dexterously. The navigator sits in a hatchway, as the kayak is entirely covered, and a sort of apron tied around his waist and around the coaming renders the boat water-tight. It is said some of the Alaskans will turn a somersault in the water, coming up on the opposite side.

Besides the boats mentioned there were others on the continent made in different ways,[252] but these are the chief ones and serve to show that the Amerind was ready to adapt himself to water when occasion demanded. Taken all in all, his weapons, armour, implements, and his transportation methods show, as other things do, that he was a progressing, thinking being, with a good brain directing his operations.