Chapter Six 



NORTHWESTERN CANADA 



I 



.NDIANS OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORIES and the 



Province of British Columbia in Canada, and the 

 States of Alaska and Washington, built bark canoes 

 that may be divided into three basic models. 



The first may be called the "kayak" model, a flat- 

 bottom, narrow canoe having nearly straight flaring 

 sides and either a chine or a very quick turn of the 

 bilge. These bark canoes were low-sided and were 

 usually partly decked. A number of tribal grotips 

 built canoes of this model, the variation being rela- 

 tively minor. The rake and form of the ends varied 

 somewhat as did the amount of decking; there were 

 also some slight variations in structure and method of 

 construction. While these bark canoes had some 

 superficial resemblance in general proportions to the 

 Eskimo kayaks, it is necessary to point out that they 

 did not, particularly in Alaska, have the same hull 

 form as the seagoing kayaks in that area. In fact, the 

 single-chine form of the Alaskan \ersion of this canoe 

 appears only in the kayaks of northern Greenland 

 and Baffin Island. The Alaskan seagoing skin 

 kayaks are all multi-chine forms that approximate a 

 "round-bottom" hull. It has been thought that the 

 flat-bottom seagoing kayak form may have existed in 

 the Canadian Northwest, at the mouth of the Mac- 

 kenzie; a kayak so identified is in the collections of the 

 U.S. National Museum (see p. 202), but there is now 

 doubt among authorities as to the correctness of this 

 identification. As will be shown later, it seems prob- 

 able that it has been improperly assigned to the Mac- 

 kenzie delta and is, in fact, an eastern Eskimo model. 



The second model used in the Northwest area was 

 a narrow-bottom flaring-sided bark canoe with 

 elevated ends, having, perhaps, a faint resemblance 

 to the Algonkin-Cree canoes of the old type. Here 

 too there was some variation among the canoes of 

 tribal groups, mostly in the shape and construction 

 of the ends and in the fitting of the gunwales. Most 

 of the canoes of this type had stem-pieces formed of a 



plank-on-edge, but in a few examples the stem-pieces 

 were bent. This model was built by the same tribal 

 groups in Canada that built the kayak form, the ex- 

 planation being that the kayak form was the hunting 

 while the second model was commonly the family or 

 cargo canoe. In Alaska, however, only the kayak- 

 form was used and the family, or cargo, canoe was 

 merely an enlargment of it. 



The third model may be called the "sturgeon-nose" 

 type; in this the ends were formed with a long, pointed 

 "ram" carried well outboard below the waterline as 

 an extension of the bottom line of the canoe. Primi- 

 tive in both model and construction, it was built in a 

 rather limited area in British Columbia and in the 

 State of Washington. The last canoes built on this 

 form were can\ as-covered; in earlier times spruce or 

 pine bark was usually employed. 



The birch in most of the Northwest is a small tree 

 and the bark is of poor quality for canoe building; 

 hence, in many areas spruce bark was commonly 

 employed in its place; a single tribal group might build 

 its canoes of either, depending upon what was available 

 near the building site. However, near the Alaska 

 coast, where kayak-form bark canoes were used and 

 good birch was usually not available, some tribes used 

 seal or other skins as a substitute. In the framework 

 spruce and fir were most commonly employed, but 

 occasionally cedar was available and was used. 



The canoe-building Indians in northwestern Canada 

 were mostly of the Athabascan family and included 

 the Chipewyan or "Chipewans," the Slave or 

 "Slavey" ( = Etchareottine)> the Beaver ( = Tsattine), 

 the Dogrib ( = Thlingchadinne), the Tanana (=Te- 

 nankutchin), the Loucheux, the Hare ( = Kawcho- 

 dinne), and others. Some of these tribal groups built 

 not only bark canoes but also dugouts. There were 

 also some Eskimo people who built bark canoes for 

 river service, as well as skin canoes, on the same model 

 as the liark kayak-form. 



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