Fourth Stage of Canoe Construction: bark cover has been shaped and all stakes placed. 

 The gunwales have been raised to sheer height; "A" indicates the sticks which fix the sheer of 

 the gunwales; "B" indicates blocks placed under ends to form rocker. .Side panels are shown 

 in place, and cover is being sewn to gunwales. (Sketch hy Adney.) 



lengths determined by the measuring stick or from 

 memory, one for each end of each thwart, and one 

 for each end of the gunvi-alc frame. Those under 

 the middle thwart ends in this canoe are lH inches 

 long, those under the ne.xt thwarts out from the 

 middle will be 9 inches, those under the end thwarts 

 will be 12 inches, and those at the gunwale ends will 

 be 17 inches long. These posts, cut with squared 

 butts, are laid alongside the bed. The gunwale 

 frame is now lifted and the pair of posts to go under 

 the middle thwart are stepped on the bark cover, 

 the gunwale is lowered onto them, and while the 

 frame and posts are held steady, stones are laid on 

 a plank over the middle thwart. Next, the ends 

 of the gunwales are held and lifted so that a pair of 

 posts can be placed at the thwarts next out from the 

 middle. More weights are placed over these, the 

 operation is repeated for the end thwarts and, finally 

 at the gvmwale ends, so that the gunwales now stand 

 on posts on the bark cover, sprung to the correct 

 fore-and-aft sheer and steadied by the bearing of 

 the outside of the gunwale frame on the rounded 

 faces of the inside stakes. Now the sheer has been 

 established and the depth of the canoe is approxi- 

 mated. 



To protect the bark cover from the thrust of the 

 weights used to ballast the frame, some builders 

 inserted small bark or wood shields for padding under 



the heels of the posts. By .some tribes the posts were 

 notched on one face, to fit inside the gunwales near 

 the thwarts, and there were also other ways of 

 assembling the gunwales themselves. 



It should be apparent that the operations just 

 described would serve only for canoes in which the 

 sheer had a gentle, fair sweep. For canoes in which 

 the sheer turned up sharply at the ends, the gunwale 

 members might have to be split into laminations 

 and pre-bent to the required sheer before being 

 assembled into the gunwale frame. To accomplish 

 this, the laminations were scalded with boiling water 

 until saturated and then the gunwale members were 

 staked out on the ground or tied with cords to set 

 the wood in the desired curves as it dried out. The 

 laminations were then wrapped with cord and the 

 gunwale was ready to assemble. To produce a 

 hogged sheer, the gunwales were made of green 

 spruce and then staked out to season in the form 

 desired; a hogged sheer was also formed by steaming 

 or boiling the gunwale members at midlength. 



The canoe, as now erected on the building bed, has 

 a double-ended, flat-bottcmed, wall-sided form. The 

 gunwales are sprung to the proper breadth and sheer, 

 and the bark is standing irregularly above them. At 

 this point, on canoes not having outwales, the bark 

 cover was laced or lashed to the gunwales. Since the 

 Malecite canoe has outwales, these are now made and 



47 



