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^ /w/^flv? M/c/7?ac /hc/r Ca^oe 

 3ean^ JO" //7//i^e £^c/r?tva/ej ^C" 



MiCMAC 2-Fathom Pack, or Woods, Canoe with Northern Lights decoration 

 on bow, and seven thwarts. 



build throughout. The canoes had no inner frame- 

 work to shape the ends; stiffness there was obtained 

 by placing battens outside the bark, one on each side 

 of the hull, that ran from the bottom of the cut in the 

 bark required to shape the ends to somewhat inboard 

 of the ends of the gunwales at the sheer. These two 

 battens, as well as a split-root stem-band covering the 

 raw ends of the cut bark, were held in place by 

 passing a spiral over-and-over lashing around all 

 three. Sometimes thicker battens reaching from the 

 high point of the ends inboard to the end thwarts 

 were added, in which case the side battens were 

 stopped at the high point of the ends and there 

 faired into the thick battens. 



The gunwale structure was rather light, the max- 

 imum cross section of the main gunwale in large 

 canoes being rarely in excess of \){ inches square. 

 These members usually tapered slightly toward the 

 ends of the canoe and had a half-arrowhead form 

 where they were joined. Old canoes had no guard 

 or outwale, but some more recent Micmac canoes 

 have had a short guard along the middle third of the 

 length. Often there was no bevel to take the rib ends 



on the lower outboard corner of the main gunwales, 

 and the gunwales were not fitted so that their out- 

 board faces stood vertically. Instead, the tenons in 

 the gunwales were cut to slant upward from the 

 inside, so that installation of the thwarts would cause 

 the outboard face to fiare outward at the top. Be- 

 tween this face and the inside of the bark cover were 

 forced the beveled ends of the ribs, which were cut 

 chisel-shape. However, some builders beveled or 

 rounded the lower outboard corner of the main 

 gunwale, as described under Malecite canoe building 

 (p. 38). The bark cover in the Micmac canoe was 

 always brought up over the gunwales, gored to 

 prevent unevcnness, and folded down on top of them 

 before being lashed. The gunwale lashing was a 

 continuous one in which the turns practically touched 

 one another outboard, though they were sometimes 

 separated under the gunwale to clear the ribs, which 

 widened near their ends, so the intervals between 

 them were very small. 



The other member of the gunwale structure was 

 the cap; its thickness was usually ){ to ^s inch, reduced 

 slightly toward the ends. Its inboard face and the 



60 



