Portaging a 41,'2-FATHOM Fur-Trade Canoe, About 1902, near the head of 

 the Ottawa River. Shows an unusually large number of carriers; four would 

 be the normal number. {Canadian Pacific Railway Company photo.) 



at convenient places. When a bad place in the 

 portage was reached, the whole crew might have to 

 turn to. The method of portaging had to meet the 

 physical limitation of the portage path and the matter 

 was not so much one of standard procedure as of im- 

 provisation of the moment. 



The voyageur was particular about his paddle; 

 no man in his right mind would use a blade wider than 

 between 4}^ and 5 inches, for anything wider would 

 exhaust him in a short distance. The paddle reached 

 to about the users' chin, when he stood with the tip 

 of the paddle on the ground in front of him. Longer 

 paddles, about 6 feet long, were used by the bow and 

 stern men, the two most skillful voyageurs in the canoe 

 and the highest paid. These men had, also, spare 

 paddles whose total length was 8 feet or more; these 

 were used in running rapids only. The paddles 

 were of hardwood, white or yellow birch or maple, 

 as hardwood paddles could be made thin in the blade 

 and small in the handle without loss of strength, 

 whereas softwood paddles could not. The blades 

 were sometimes painted white, the tips in some color 

 such as red, blue, green or black, but other color 

 combinations were often used. 



In Christopherson's service, sail was rarely used, 

 as the canoemen were unskilled in handling it and 

 loss had resulted. In early times, however, it appears 

 to have been much used on the Great Lakes routes 

 by the French and the North West Company. A 

 single square-sail was the only rig employed; the 

 canoes could not be worked to windward under 

 fore-and-aft sails. 



During the great seasonal movements the trade 

 canoes moved in fleets called brigades, the usual 

 brigade in early times being three or four canoes, 

 but later, when the needs of the individual posts 

 had grown, the brigade could be of any necessary 

 number of canoes to carry in the required supplies 

 and goods or to bring out the season's catch of furs. 

 The leader of the brigade was the condudeur or guide; 

 sometimes he was the post's factor. In French times 

 the maitre canot would be loaded with 60 pieces, or 

 packs, to the total of about 3 short tons and half a ton 

 of provisions, and eight men, each with an allowance 

 of 40 pounds for gear, so that the whole weight in the 

 canoe would be something over 4 short tons. An 

 example of such a canoe measured, inside the gun- 

 wales, 53^ fathoms long and 4)^ feet beam. The usual 



152 



