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Small 3-Fathom North Canoe of the Tetes de Boule 

 model. Built in the igth century for fast travel, this 

 Hudson's Bay Company canoe was also called nadowe 

 chiman, or Iroquois canoe. 



In model, all the fur-trade canoes had narrow 

 bottoms, flaring topsides, and sharp ends. The flaring 

 sides were rather straight in section and the bottom 

 nearly flat athwartships. The bottom had a moderate 

 rocker very close to the ends. In nearly all of these 

 canoes, the main gunwales were sheered up only 

 slightly at the ends and were secured to the sides 

 of the inner stem-piece; the outwales and caps, 

 however, were strongly sheered up to the top of the 

 stem. The curvature and form of the ends, in later 

 years at least, varied with the place of building. 



After the English took control of Canada and the 

 fur trade, a large number of Iroquois removed into 

 Quebec and were employed by the English fur traders 

 as canoemen and as canoe builders. Though the 

 aboriginal Iroquois were not birch-bark canoe 

 builders, they apparently became so after they reached 

 Canada, for the fur-trade canoes built on the Ottawa 

 River and tributaries by the Algonkins and their 

 neighbors became known after 1820 as nadowe chiman 

 or adowe chiman, names which mean Iroquois canoe. 

 These "Iroquois canoes," however, were not a 

 standard form. Those built by the Algonkin had 

 relatively upright stem profiles, giving them a rather 

 long bottom, and the outwales and caps stood almost 

 vertical at the stem-heads; in contrast, the "Iroquois 

 canoes" built by the Tetes de Boule had a propor- 

 tionally shorter bottom than those of the Algonkin, 

 because the end profiles were cut under more at the 



forefoot. Also, the outwales and caps of the Tetes de 

 Boule canoes were not sheered quite as much as were 

 those of the Algonkin. 



It is supposed that the Tetes de Boule were taught 

 to build this model by Iroquois, who had replaced 

 the French builders subsequent to the closing of the 

 canoe factory at Trois Rivieres, sometime about 1820. 

 After the English took possession of Canada in 1763, 

 the old canoe factory had been maintained by the 

 Montreal traders (the "North West Company"), and 

 it was not until these traders were absorbed by the 

 Hudson's Bay Company that canoe manufacture at 

 Trois Rivieres finally came to a halt, although it is 

 probable that the production of canoes there had 

 become limited by shortages of bark and other suitable 

 materials. However, the North West Company had 

 built the large trading canoes elsewhere, for many of 

 its posts had found it necessary to construct canoes 

 locally, and when the Hudson's Bay Company finally 

 took over the fur trade it continued the policy of 

 building the canoes at various posts where material 

 and builders could be found. This policy appears to 

 have produced in the fur-trade canoe model a third 

 variant in which the high ends were much rounded at 

 the stem head; this was the form built by the Ojibway 

 and Cree (see p. 139). It must be noted, however, 

 that the variation in the three forms of furttrade canoe 

 was expressed almost entirely in the form and framing 

 of the ends; the lines were all about the same, though 



136 



