THE USES OF WOOD 



977 



pieces of bark were sewed together with strips of hick- 

 ory, basswood, or wicopy bark, or with the fibrous roots 

 of tamarack ; and the seams were made watertight with 

 pine and balsam resin, or with the pulpy inner bark of 

 slippery elm. Such canoes varied in size from the shallow 

 coracle four feet long, thirty inches wide, and six inches 



deep, up to the trading vessel 

 thirty feet long, thirty inches 

 deep, and four and a half feet 

 wide. When offered for sale, 

 the largest bark canoes were held 

 at about forty dollars. They 

 were very important in trade, 

 travel, and war. Alexander 

 Mackenzie took one of them 

 from the region of the Great 

 Lakes to the Bering Sea by way 



of the Mackenzie and the Yukon Rivers. That was per- 

 haps the longest single journey ever made in a boat pro- 

 pelled by human power alone. Bark canoes sometimes 

 carried sails, and Louis Hennepin is authority for the 

 claim that they could cover a distance of 160 to 180 miles 



their spouts with wood, thus killing the monsters. It is 

 apparent that the flimsy vessel has played its part in his- 

 tory and romance. The bark canoe long ago disappeared 

 except as a plaything to induce tourists to part with their 

 dimes at resorts. It is believed that no factory makes 

 bark canoes, though a few are still made by individuals. 



The dugout is a canoe hol- 

 lowed from the trunk of a tree, 

 and in the past this boat varied 

 in size from little troughs barely 

 large enough to carry one man, 

 up to enormous hollowed trees 

 which might carry fifty men and 

 their equipment. The Jesuit 



BIRCH BARK CANOE MODEL 



The northern Indians reached such perfection in their birch bark canoes that the white man was never 

 able to make any improvements in the model. The above cut gives two views, one sidewise, the other 

 perpendicular, looking down into the canoe. No bark canoes are now on the market, though an occasional 

 cne is made for private use. 



missionaries mentioned canoes a hundred or more feet 

 long. The largest dugouts on record were made by 

 Pacific Coast Indians of red cedar. Nearly any tree can 

 be made into a dugout if the trunk is large enough, solid, 

 and straight. White pine served well, yellow poplar was 



in a day un- 

 der sails made 

 of bark. New 

 England I n d ians 

 with fleets of bark 

 canoes engaged in 

 battle on the ocean, 

 according to Roger 

 Williams ; and a fleet 

 of fifty bark canoes 

 and one hundred and 

 seventy dugouts was mobilized on the Allegheny River 

 in '753 by the French for the invasion of the Ohio Val- 

 ley. Lawson in his account of the Carolinas states that 

 the Indians of that region hunted whales by sailing after 

 them in canoes, mounting on their backs, and plugging 



IN A LIGHTER VEIN 



Canoes built for pleasure hold their proper place in the ship and boat industry. Such 

 canoes are met with by hundreds on lakes and rivers in the north country in summer. 

 They arc marvels of lightness, grace and beauty, and are constructed of the finest woods 

 obtainable. 



the favorite 

 in the middle 

 states, and cy- 

 press in the South. 

 The Indians hollow- 

 ed their canoes chief- 

 ly with fires, using 

 stones and shell as 

 scrapers to finish the 

 work. Other good 

 canoe woods were 

 sycamore, black walnut, butternut, cucumber, sassafras, 

 ash, cherry, and red and white cedar. The lighter cedar 

 canoe was the ordinary means by which the early farmers 

 of New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania carried their 

 produce to market, according to Peter Kalm who wrote 



