ing sticks, and these served as "footrules." They 

 were sometimes squared and were painted as well as 

 notched. 



A Malecite Indian, interviewed in 1925, had three 

 such sticks for canoe building. One, for the length of 

 the gunwale frame, was half the total length required; 

 it was notched to show the distance at which the 

 ends of the gunwales were lashed and also the position 

 of the thwarts. Such a stick would be about 7 feet 

 long for a 16-foot canoe, 8 feet for an 18-foot canoe. 

 The second stick was notched to show half the length 

 of each of the thwarts. The third stick had notches 

 showing the height of the gunwale at each thwart 

 and at the end, four notches in all for the half-length 

 of the canoe. This stick measured from the surface 

 of the building bed, not from a regular base line. 



The method of measuring canoes appears to have 

 been fairly well standardized, at least in historical 

 times. As stated earlier, length was commonly taken 

 over the gunwales only, and did not include the end 

 profiles, which might extend up to a foot or slightly 

 more beyond the gunwale ends, bow and stern. 

 However, in certain old records the overall length is 

 given, and in various areas other methods of measure- 

 ment existed. Where a building frame was used, 

 the given length of the canoe was the length of this 

 frame; usually this approximated the length of 

 the gunwales. The width of a canoe was measured 

 by the Indian from inside to inside of the main gun- 

 wale members. The extreme beam might be only 2 

 or 3 inches greater than the inside measurement of the 

 gunwales, but if the sides bulged out, the beam might 

 actually be 6 or more inches greater. The depth 

 was usually measured from the inside of the ribs to 

 the top of the gunwale but in building it was measured 

 from the surface of the building bed to the bottom 

 of the main gimwales, as noted above in the descrip- 

 tion of the measuring sticks. 



Thus it will be seen that the Indian measurements 

 constituted a statement of dimensions primarily 

 useful to the builder, for their main purpose was to 

 fix the proportions rather than establish the actual 

 length, width, and depth. Today we state the 

 length of a canoe in terms of extreme overall measure- 

 ment; the Indian was inclined to state the length 

 in building terms, giving dimensions applicable to 

 the woodwork only, just as the old-time shipbuilder 

 gave the keel length of a vessel instead of the overall 

 length on deck. 



The building site was carefully selected. The space 

 in which the canoe was to be set up had to be smooth, 



free of stones and roots or anything that might damage 

 the bark, and the soil had to be such that stakes 

 driven into it would stand firmly. A shady place was 

 preferred, as the bark would not dry there as fast as 

 in sunlight. Since the construction of a canoe re- 

 quired both time and the aid of the whole Indian 

 family, the site had to be close to a suitable place for 

 camping, where food and water could be obtained. It 

 is not surprising, therefore, to find canoe building 

 sites that apparently had been used by generations of 

 Indians. 



The preparation of the building bed was controlled 

 by the intended form of the canoe to be built. If the 

 bottom of the canoe was to be rockered, the cleared 

 ground was brought to a flat surface for the length 

 required for setting up the canoe. If the rocker was 

 to be great, the middle of the bed would be slightly 

 depressed. If the bottom was to be straight fore-and- 

 aft, or very nearly so, the bed was crowned from 1 }i 

 to 2 inches higher in the middle than at the ends, so 

 that the canoe was first set up with a hogged bottom. 

 Very large canoes such as were used in the fur trade 

 required as much as 4 inches crown in the building 

 bed. Other dimensions being equal, the amount of 

 crown was usually somewhat greater in canoes having 

 bulging sides than in ones having more upright or 

 flaring sides. Canoe factories such as were operated 

 in certain fur-trading posts sometimes had a plank 

 building bed suitably crowned and drilled for setting 

 the stakes. 



Two methods of setting up the canoe were used. In 

 most of the eastern area, the gunwales were put 

 together and used to estaljlish the plan outline of the 

 canoe on the building bed. But a building frame was 

 used for constructing the various narrow-bottom 

 canoes having flaring sides, and for some other tribal 

 forms. The frame, made in the same general form as 

 the gunwales when assembled, but less wide and 

 sometimes much shorter, could be taken apart easily, 

 allowing it to be removed after the canoe was built; 

 hence it could be used to build as many canoes as 

 desired to the same dimensions as the first, and was 

 retained by the builder as a tool, or pattern, for future 

 use. 



The method of construction in which gunwales only 

 were used in setting up the canoe will be explained 

 first in order to show the general technique of con- 

 struction. Use of the building frame will then be 

 described. Important deviations from these methods 

 will be descriijed in later chapters under the individual 

 tribal types in which they occur. 



37 



