28 ALL AFLOAT 



bottom and a moderate sheer in the sides. 

 The best bateaux and Durhams were made 

 with strong white oak bottoms and light fir 

 sides. 



The bark canoe gave place to the boat, step 

 by step, as civilized intercourse advanced. It 

 disappeared first from the great national high- 

 way of the St Lawrence and the Lakes, where 

 the French began using bateaux and sailing 

 craft as early as the seventeenth century. 

 During the eighteenth the boat gained steadily 

 on the canoe, which was more and more con- 

 fined to the Indians. The local craft in chief 

 civilized use on both sides during the fight for 

 Canada was the bateau ; and the best crews 

 then and afterwards were the French-Canadian 

 voyageurs. 



But everywhere beyond the immediate 

 spheres of French and British influence the 

 canoe was universal. The Great West then 

 began at the Lakes and the Mississippi, and 

 was a land of wild adventure, rumour, and 

 extravagant surmise. The map that formed the 

 frontispiece to the standard authority of the 

 time— Jeff erys' French Dominions in America 

 —is full of geographical romance. Once in 

 the Kaministikwia, the map has no terri- 

 torial divisions other than those between the 



