Chapter One 

 EARLY HISTORY 



X Ht 



HE DEVELOPMENT of bark canocs in North 

 America before the arri\-al of the white men 

 cannot satisfactorily Ije traced. Unhke tlie cius;- 

 out, the bark canoe is too perishable to survive 

 in recognizable form buried in a bog or submerged 

 in water, so we have little or no visual evidence of 

 very great age upon which to base sound assumptions. 



Records of bark canoes, contained in the reports 

 of the early white explorers of North America, are 

 woefully lacking in detail, but they at least give 

 grounds for believing that the bark canoes even then 

 were highly developed, and were the product of a 

 very long period of existence and improvement prior 

 to the first appearance of Europeans. 



The Europeans were most impressed b\- tiie fact 

 that the canoes were built of bark reinforced by a 

 light wooden frame. The speed with which they 

 could Ije propelled by the Indians also caused 

 amazement, as did their light weight and marked 

 strength combined with a great load-carrying 

 capacity in shallow water. It is remarkable, however, 

 that although bark canoes apparently aroused so 

 much admiration among Europeans, so little of 

 accurate and complete information apj^ears in their 

 writings. 



With two notable exceptions, to be discussed Inter, 

 early explorers, churchmen, travellers, and writers 

 were generally content merely to mention the number 

 of persons in a canoe. The first published account of 

 variations in existing forms of the American bark 

 canoe does not occur imtil 1 724, and the first known 

 illustration of a bark canoe accurate enough to 

 indicate its tribal designation appeared only two years 

 earlier. This fact makes any detailed examination 

 of the early books dealing with North .America quite 

 unprofitaijle as far as precise information on bark 

 canoes is concerned. 



The first known reference by a Frenchman to the 

 bark canoe is that of Jacques Cartier, who reported 

 that he saw two bark canoes in 1535; he said the 



two carried a total of 17 men. Ohamplain was the 

 first to record any definite dimensions of the ijark 

 canoes; he wrote that in 1603 he saw, near what is 

 now Quei)ec, bark canoes 8 to 9 paces long and 1 Yi 

 paces wide, and he added that they might transport 

 as much as a pipe of wine yet were light enough to 

 be carried easilv by ont man. If a pace is taken as 

 about 30 inches, then the canoes would have been 

 between 20 and 23 feet long, ijetween 40 and 50 

 inches Ijeam and capaljle of carrying about half a 

 ton, English measurements. These were apparently 

 Algonkin canoes. Champlain was impressed by 

 the speed of the bark canoes; he reported that his 

 fully manned longboat was passed Ijy two canoes, 

 each with two [)addlers. As will be seen, he was 

 perhaps primarily responsible for the rapid adoption 

 of bark canocs Ijy the early French in Canada. 



The first English reference that has been found is in 

 the records of C^aptain George Weymouth's \oyage. 

 He and his crew in 1603 saw bark canoes to the 

 westward of Penobscot Bay, on w hat is now the coast 

 t)f Maine. The English were impressed, just as 

 CUiamplain had been, by the speed with which canoes 

 having but three or four paddlcrs could pass his ship's 

 boat manned with four oarsinen. Weymouth also 

 speaks admiringly of the fine workmanship shown in 

 the structure of the canoes. 



When Champlain attacked the Iroquois, on what is 

 now Lake C:hamplain, he found that these Indians had 

 ■"oak" bark (more probably elm) canoes capable of 

 carrying 10, 15, and 18 men. This would indicate 

 that the maximum size of the Iroquois canoes was 

 about 30 to 33 feel long. The illustrations in his pub- 

 lished account indicate canoes about 30 feet long; but 

 early illustrations of this kind were too often the prod- 

 uct of the artist's imagination, just as were the delin- 

 eations of the animals and plants of North America. 



.\s an exam.ple of what ma\- be deduced from other 

 earlv French accounts, Cihamplain in 1615, with a 

 companion and 12 Indians, embarked at La C'hine in 



