Chapter Eight 



TEMPORARY CRAFT 



1J. 



• SE OF TEMPORARY CRAFT SEEMS to have been 

 confined to the Indians, who for the most part built 

 them of bark, although some tribes used skins. How- 

 ever, very little in the way of information exists on 

 the forms used by the individual tribes, for early 

 travelers did not always have opportunities to see 

 these emergency craft, and when they did they 

 rarely took the trouble to record their construction 

 and design. 



Bark Canoes 



There is ample evidence to support the belief that 

 a great many of the tribes building birch-bark canoes 

 also used temporary canoes of other barks such as 

 spruce and elm, as has been mentioned in earlier 

 chapters. Invariably, the qualities of these other 

 barks, particularly spruce, were such that their use 

 was often somewhat more laborious and the results 

 less satisfactory than with birch; but the necessities 

 of travel and the availability of materials were con- 

 trolling factors, and with care spruce bark could be 

 used to build a canoe almost as good as one of birch 

 bark. The forms of these canoes do not appear to 

 have been as standardized as the tribal forms of the 

 better-built bark canoes; rather, the model of the 

 temporary canoe was entirely a matter to be decided 

 by the individual builder on the basis of the impor- 

 tance of the temporary canoe to his needs, the 

 limitation on time allowed for construction, and the 

 material available. 



The reasons for using substitute material are fairly 

 obvious. In forest travel it was not always possible 

 or practical to portage a canoe for a long distance 

 simply to make a short water passage somewhere 

 along the route. War parties and hunters, therefore, 

 often found it necessary to build a temporary canoe. 



one that could be utilized for a limited water passage 

 and then abandoned. Since such a limited use did 

 not warrant expenditure of much time or labor on 

 construction, the canoe was prepared quickly from 

 readily available material and in order to meet these 

 requirements many Indian tribes developed canoe 

 forms and building techniques somewhat different 

 from the more elaborate construction using birch or 

 spruce bark. 



It is obvious that much time and work could be 

 avoided by use of a single large sheet of bark that 

 was reasonably flexible and strong. But many of 

 the barks meeting this specification had a coarse 

 longitudinal grain that split easily, so forming a 

 canoe by cutting gores was out of the question. This 

 difficulty was avoided by folding, or "crimping," 

 the bark cover along the gunwales at two or more 

 places on each side of the canoe; this permitted the 

 bottom to be flattened athwartships and the keel 

 line to be rockered, both desirable in a canoe. 



The problem of closing the ends also had to be 

 solved. This was done by clamping the ends of the 

 bark between two battens and, perhaps, a bark cord 

 as well, and then lashing together the battens, bark 

 ends, and cord with w rappings of root thongs. Cord 

 made from the inner bark of the basswood and other 

 trees could also be used for this purpose. The ends 

 of the canoe could then be made watertight by a 

 liberal application of gum or tallow, while grass, 

 shavings, moss, or inner bark mixed with gum or 

 even clay could be used to fill the larger openings 

 that might appear in hurried construction. 



Obviously, a simple wood structure was required 

 by the specifications. Therefore, the gunwales were 

 usually made of saplings with their jjutts roughly 

 secured together or spliced. This allowed length to 

 be obtained without the necessity of working down 

 large poles to usable dimensions, a laborious and 

 time-consuming undertaking with primitive tools. 



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