

/(■ayal> /arm Birch Bark Canor, Ba6mr i9,yfr tb/Zry, BC 

 irngfti overall l8'-4i 

 Bran, oyer gmwa/et ^5' 



Kayak-Form Canoe of British Columbia and upper Yukon valley. Shows 

 hogged bottom, usual in the type with a rigid bottom frame, which becomes 

 straight or cambered when canoe is afloat and manned. Original in the 

 Museum of the American Indian, New York. 



method of securing the decking firmly rather than 

 an actual practice used on full-size canoes. 



It now remains only to give short descriptions 

 of the various kayak-form canoes that have been 

 observed. 



The ends of the Eskimo-built canoes of the lower 

 Yukon had a short rake, the heel of the end profile 

 breaking out of the bottom line at a slight angle 

 and sweeping upward and outward in a gentle curve, 

 often becoming almost straight near the stem head. 

 The bow and stern were nearly the same height, 

 the bow being a little higher, about half the midship 

 depth above the sheer amidships. The sheer at 

 each end was almost dead straight until within a few 

 inches of the end; thence it swept up sharply with 

 the inner gunwale ends, broadened, resting on the 

 inboard side of the stem piece. The extreme ends 

 of the inner gunwales were thus at the extreme stem- 

 head. The stem-pieces were of plank, the cutwater 

 portion outside the bark cover being sharpened the 

 full height of the stems. These lower Yukon canoes 

 had three side battens above the chine piece, but 

 not all ran the full length in one piece; some were 

 in two, in which case the ends merely ran past one 

 another for a few rib-spaces and were neither butted 

 nor lapped. The forward deck extended nearly one- 



third the canoe's length and had a batten across 

 the inboard deck-end; the after deck reached to the 

 after thwart. Adney's model of such a canoe shows 

 the after deck lashed to the gunwales with spiral 

 turns over a batten along the deck edges and finished 

 toward the stern with chain stitching, but no such 

 arrangement was seen in any full-sized canoe. 



The form of these Eskimo-built canoes was nearly 

 that of a double-ended flat-bottom skiff; the bottom 

 being flat athwartships and without rocker fore-and- 

 aft. The sides flared and were nearly straight. The 

 turn of the bilge was quite sharp, the chine having a 

 very short radius. In plan, the canoe showed no 

 hollow in the ends, which were convex both at gun- 

 wale and on the bottom frame. In some of the 

 full-sized canoes inspected there appeared to be a 

 slight hog ranging from ){ to % inch in the bottom, 

 but there was no evidence to suggest that this was a 

 result of the drying and shrinkage of the canoe struc- 

 ture with age. Hearne's drawing of a kayak-form 

 canoe shows an impossible amount of hog in the 

 bottom, and he indicates that some hog was inten- 

 tional in building. This would disappear when the 

 canoe was loaded afloat owing to the light and 

 flexible structure, and it is evident that the builders 

 usually sought to have the bottom slightly hogged. 



164 



