have any particular significance as a totem or religious 

 symbol; they were used purely as decoration or to 

 identify the owner. Such forms as the half-moon, a 

 star in various shapes, or some other figure might be 

 used by the builder, but these were apparently only 

 his canoe mark, not a family insignia or his usual 

 signature, and could be altered at will. 



The usual method of decoration was to place the 

 canoe mark on both sides of the canoe at the ends and 

 to have along the gunwales amidships a long narrow 

 panel of decoration, usually of some simple form. 

 The panel decorations are said by Micmacs to have 

 been selected by the builder merely as pleasing 

 designs. One design used was much like the fleur- 

 de-lis, another was a series of triangles supposed to 

 represent camps, still another was the northern lights 

 design, a series of closely spaced, sloping, parallel 

 lines (or very narrow panels) that seem to represent 

 a design much used in the quill decoration for which 

 the Micmac were noted. Canoes are recorded as 

 having stylized representations of a salmon, a moose, 

 a cross, or a very simple star form; these may have 

 been canoe marks or may once have been a tribal 

 mark in a certain locality. A series of half-circles 

 were sometimes used in the gunwale panels, which 

 were rarely alike on both sides of the canoe, and it is 

 probable that use was made of other forms that have 

 not been recorded. Colored quills in northern 

 lights pattern were used in some model or toy canoes 

 but not in any surviving example of a full-size canoe. 

 It is quite possible, however, that such quill-work was 

 once used in Micmac canoe decoration. Painting of 



the bark cover for decorative purposes in Micmac 

 canoes has not been recorded. 



Historical references to the canoes of the Micmac 

 are frequent in the French records of Canada; it 

 must have been Micmac canoes that Cartier saw in 

 1534 at Prince Edward Island and in Bay Chaleur. 

 The most complete description of such canoes is in 

 the account of Nicolas Denys, who came to the 

 Micmac country in 1633 and remained there almost 

 continuously until his death at 90, in 1688. His 

 travels during this period took him into Maine as 

 far as the Penobscot and throughout what are now 

 New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. While his descrip- 

 tions are primarily concerned with the Malecite dress, 

 houses, and hunting and fishing techniques, his notes 

 on birch-bark canoes seem to indicate very clearly 

 that he is describing a hogged-sheer Micmac rough- 

 water canoe. He says, for example, that the length 

 of these canoes was between 3 and 4}^ fathoms, 

 the fathom being the French brasse, so that they 

 ranged in length from 16 to 24 feet over thie gunwales. 

 This gunwale length seems reasonable, since Denys 

 gives the beam as only about 2 English feet, obviously 

 a gunwale measurement in view of the great tumble- 

 home in these canoes. That the Micmac rough-water 

 canoe is the subject of Denys' observations is further 

 indicated by his statement that the depth was such 

 that the gunwales came to the armpits of a man 

 seated on the bottom. This could only be true in a 

 canoe having a hogged sheer in the lengths given, 

 and is, in fact, a slight exaggeration unless the man 

 referred to was of less than average height. The 



Micmac C^anoi;, Bathurst, N.B. {(..'nninltcm Geological Survey photo.) 



68 



