Western Cree 



The western portion of the great Cree tribe appear 

 to have occupied the western shore of James Bay and 

 to have moved gradually northwestward in historical 

 times. Their territory included the northern portion 

 of Ontario and northern Manitoba north of Lake 

 Winnipeg, and as early as 1800 they had entered 

 northwestern Alberta. The line of division between 

 the canoes of the eastern and western Cree cannot be 

 strictly determined, but it is roughly the Missinaibi 

 River, which, with the Abitibi River, empties into 

 the head of James Bay at the old post of Moose 

 Factory. The southern range of the Cree model 

 was only a little way south of the head of James Bay, 

 irregularly westward in line with Lake St. Joseph to 

 Lake Winnipeg. To the west, the Cree type of canoe 

 gradually spread until it met the canoe forms of the 

 Athabascan in the Northwest Territories, in the 

 vicinity of Lake Athabaska in north-western Sas- 

 katchewan. 



The canoes of the western Cree, as has been noted, 

 strongly resembled the long-nose Ojibway model 

 except that they had less pronounced chin. But 

 unlike those of the eastern Cree, their canoes employed 

 an inside stem-piece that was sometimes a laminated 

 piece and sometimes a piece of spruce root. The 

 stem head was commonly bent sharply and secured 

 between the gunwale ends at the point where the two 

 longitudinals were fastened together, much as in some 

 Ojibway long-nose canoes. The Cree canoe had 

 basically the same dish-shaped midsection, but it had 

 very full, round bilges and the flare was so curved in 

 the topside that it was even less apparent than in the 

 Ojibway model. The shorter chin of the Cree canoe 

 also made tumble-home in the end sections unneces- 

 sary, and cross section near the headboards was 

 given the form of a slightly rounded U . 



The bottom had very little rocker at the ends, 

 being straight for practically the whole length. The 

 stem-piece if laminated (often in only two or three 

 laminations) came up from the bottom in a fair round 

 forefoot and then tumbled in by a gentle curve to the 

 stem-head, where it was bent sharply to pass down 

 between the gunwale ends as previously noted. But 

 if the stem-piece was of spruce root, the profile was 

 often somewhat irregular and the chin was more 

 pronounced. In a common style the stem came fair 

 out of the bottom in a quick hard curve, then curved 



outward slightly until the height of the least freeboard 

 amidships was reached, at which height another hard 

 turn began the tumble-home in a gentle sweep to the 

 stem-head, where there was a very hard turn down- 

 ward. The stem-head was often split, as in some 

 Ojibway canoes, so that it came over the joined ends 

 of the main gunwales and the two halves were then 

 lashed to the inside faces of the gunwales. 



Birch bark was often poor or scarce in the territory 

 of the western Cree, as in that of their eastern brothers. 

 As a substitute, they employed spruce bark and in 

 general seem to have achieved better results, for 

 their spruce-bark canoes had a neater appearance. 

 If the canoe was built when or where root material 

 was difficult to obtain, the western Cree used raw- 

 hide for sewing the bark cover. When the stems 

 were lashed with rawhide, a stem-band of bark under 

 the lashing was common. 



The gimwales were round in cross section and were 

 often spliced amidships. The bark cover was lashed 

 to these with a continuous lashing, no caps or out- 

 wales being employed. As in the Ojibway long-nose 

 canoe, the headboards were very narrow and much 

 bellied. These canoes were built with four or five 

 thwarts; the 4-thwart type was used for gathering 

 wild rice, as was the Ojibway type, while the 5-thwart 

 canoe was the portage model. The thwarts were 

 sometimes mortised into the gunwales, but some 

 builders made the thwart ends chisel-pointed and 

 drove them into short splits in the gunwales before 

 lashing them, one or two holes being drilled in the 

 thwart ends to take the lashing thongs. When the 

 thwarts were tenoned into the gunwales, the builders 

 of course made the inside of the gunwales flat. 



When spruce bark was employed, its greater stiff- 

 ness made it possible to space the ribs as much as 

 10 inches on centers, but with birch the spacing was 

 about 1 inch, edge to edge. The sheathing was in 

 short splints and the inside of the canoe was "shingled" 

 or covered irregularly without regard to lining off 

 the strakes, a practice sometimes observed in Ojibway 

 long-nose canoes. The much-bellied and narrow 

 headboards were fitted as in the long-nose canoe, and 

 the heel was secured under a piece of sheathing and 

 held by it and the first two ribs. 



Western Cree canoes were built with a building 

 frame, and the bed was raised in the middle. The 

 sewing varied. The ends were lashed with combina- 

 tions of close-wrapped turns, crossed turns, grouped, 

 and spiral turns; the lashing commonly went around 

 the inside stem piece rather than through it. Side 



132 



