two bark canoes for a trip to the Great Lakes. He 

 stated that the two canoes, with men and baggage 

 aboard, were over-crowded. Taking one of these 

 canoes as having 7 men and baggage aboard, it seems 

 apparent that it was not much larger than the largest 

 of the canoes Champlain had seen in 1603 on the St. 

 Lawrence. But in 1672, Louis Joliet and Father 

 Jacques Marquette traveled in two canoes, carrying 

 a total of 5 French and 25 Indians — say 14 in one 

 canoe and 16 in the other. These canoes, then, must 

 have been at least 28 feet long over the gunwales, ex- 

 clusive of the round of the ends, or about 30 feet over- 

 all. The Chevalier Henri de Tonti, one of La Salle's 

 officers, mentions a canoe carrying 30 men — probably 

 14 paddlers on each side, a steersman, and a passenger 

 or officer. Such a capacity might indicate a canoe 

 about 40 feet over the gunwales, though this seems 

 very long indeed; it is more probable that the canoe 

 would be about 36 feet long. 



Another of La Salle's officers, Baron de LaHontan, 

 gave the first reasonably complete account that has 

 been found of the size and character of a birch-bark 

 canoe. This was written at Montreal June 29, 1684. 

 After stating that he had seen at least a hundred bark 

 canoes in his journeys, he said that birch-bark canoes 

 ranged in length from 10 to 28 pieds and were capable 

 of carrying from 2 to 14 persons. The largest, when 

 carrying cargo, might be handled by three men and 

 could carry 2,000 pounds of freight (20 quintals). 

 These large canoes were safe and never upset. They 

 were built of bark peeled in the winter; hot water was 

 thrown on the bark to make it pliable, so that it could 

 be rolled up after it was removed from the tree. The 

 canoes were built of more than one piece of bark as 

 a rule. 



The large canoes, he reports, were 28 pieds long, 

 4}^ pieds wide and 20 pouces deep, top of gunwale to 

 top of frames on bottom. The last indicates "inside" 

 measurement; in this the length would be over the 

 gunwales, not overall, and the beam inside the gun- 

 wales, not extreme. He also says the canoes had a lin- 

 ing or sheathing of cedar "splints" or plank and, in- 

 side this, cedar ribs or frames. The bark was the 

 thickness of an ecu (this coin, a crown, was a little less 

 than )i inch thick), the sheathing the thickness of two 

 ecus, and the ribs of three. The ends of the ribs were 

 pointed and these were seated in holes in the under- 

 side of the gunwales. There were 8 crosspieces 

 (thwarts) between the gunwales (note: such a canoe 

 would commonly have 9 thwarts; LaHontan may 

 have erred here). 



The canoes were convenient, he says, because of 

 their great lightness and shallow draft, but they were 

 easily damaged. Hence they had to be loaded and 

 unloaded afloat and usually required repairs to the 

 bark covers at the end of each day. They had to be 

 staked down at night, so that a strong wind might not 

 damage or blow them away; but this light weight 

 permitted them to be carried with ease by two men, 

 one at each end, and this suited them for use on the 

 rivers of Canada, where rapids and falls made carry- 

 ing frequently necessary. These canoes were of no 

 value on the Lakes, LaHontan states, as they could 

 not be used in windy weather; though in good weather 

 they might cross lakes and might go four or five 

 leagues on open water. The canoes carried small 

 sails, but these could be used only with fair winds of 

 moderate force. The paddlers might kneel, sit, or 

 stand to paddle and pole the canoes. The paddle 

 blade was 20 pouces long, 6 wide, and 4 lignes thick; 

 the handle was of the diameter of a pigeon's egg and 

 three pieds long. The paddlers also had a "setting 

 pole," to pole the canoes in shoal water. The canoes 

 were alike at both ends and cost 80 ecus (La Hontan's 

 cost 90), and would last not more than five or six 

 years. The foregoing is but a condensed extract of 

 LaHontan's lively account. 



In translating LaHontan's measurements a pied 

 is taken as 12.79 inches, a. pouce as about \)i inches. 

 The French fathom, or brasse, as used in colonial 

 Canada, was the length from finger-tip to finger-tip 

 of the arms outstretched and so varied, but may be 

 roughly estimated as about 64 inches; this was the 

 "fathom" used later in classing fur-trade canoes for 

 length. In English measurements his large canoe 

 would have been about 30 feet long over the gunwales 

 and, perhaps, almost 33 feet overall, 57^ inches beam 

 inside the gunwales, or about 60 inches extreme beam. 

 The depth inside would be 21 or 21^^ inches bottom 

 to top of gunwale amidships. LaHontan also de- 

 scribed the elm-bark canoes of the Iroquois as being 

 large and wide enough to carry 30 paddlers, 15 on a 

 side, sitting or standing. Here again a canoe about 

 40 feet long is indicated. He said that these elm-bark 

 canoes were crude, heavy and slow, with low sides, 

 so that once he and his men reached £in open lake, 

 he no longer feared pursuit by the Iroquois in these 

 craft. 



From the slight evidence offered in such records as 

 these, it appears that the Indians may have had, when 

 the Europeans first reached Canada, canoes at least 

 as long as the 5-fathom or 5^-fathom canoe of later 



