"Fur-Trade Ma'tre Canot With Passengers.' 

 Hopkins {Public Archives of Canada photo) . 



From an oil painting by 



The fur traders used not only the so-called fur-trade 

 canoes, of course, but they employed various Indian 

 types when small canoes were required. And in 

 the construction of the high-ended fur-trade models, 

 they did not limit themselves to canoes of relatively 

 great length. Each "canoe road" forming the main 

 lines of travel in the old fur-trade had requirements 

 that affected the size of the canoes employed on it. 

 The largest size of fur-trade canoe, the standard 

 5}^-fathom (bottom length), was employed only 

 on the Montreal-Great Lakes route, in the days 

 before this run was taken over by bateaux, schooners, 

 sloops, and later, by steamers. At the western end of 

 this route, a smaller 4- or 4)^-fathom canoe came 

 into use. The latter was used on the long run into 

 the northwest. Even smaller canoes were often 

 employed by the northern posts; the 3- or 3}^-fathom 

 sizes were popular where the canoe routes were 

 very difficult to operate. For use on some of the 

 large northern lakes, the large canoes of the Montreal- 

 Great Lakes run were introduced. Fur coming east 

 from the Athabasca might thus be transported in 

 canoes of varying size along the way. 



In judging the size of the canoe mentioned in a fur- 

 trader's journal, it is often very difficult to be certain 

 whether the measurement he is employing is bottom 

 or gunwale length. In the largest canoes, however, 



the 5J^-fathom bottom-length was the 6-fathom gun- 

 wale length, and the use of either usually, but not 

 always, indicates the method of measurement. This 

 is not the case in the small canoe however, where the 

 matter must too often be left to guesswork. To give 

 the reader a more precise idea of the sizes of the 

 canoes last employed in the fur trade, the following 

 will serve. The mailre canot of the Montreal-Great 

 Lakes run was commonly about 36 feet overall, or 

 about 32 feet 9 inches over the gunwales, and a little 

 over 32 feet on the bottom. The beam at gunwale 

 was roughly 66 inches (inside the gunwales) or about 

 68-70 inches extreme beam. The width of the build- 

 ing frame that formed the bottom would be somewhere 

 around 42 inches. The depth amidships, from bottom 

 to top of gunwale might be approximately 30-32 

 inches and the height of the stems roughly 54 inches. 

 These dimensions might be best described as average, 

 since canoes with gunwale length given as 6 fathoms 

 were built a number of inches wider or narrower, 

 and deeper or shallower. The earlier fur-trade 

 canoes of the French and of the North West Company, 

 for example, were apparently narrower than the 

 above. 



The 5-fathom size that replaced the larger canoe 

 at the close of the bark-canoe period was about 31 

 feet long over the gunwales or 30 feet 8 inches in a 



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