18 ALL AFLOAT 



the union of several logs, which formed the 

 clumsy but more stable raft. Then some pre- 

 historic genius found that the more a log was 

 hollowed out the better it would float ; and 

 so the dug-out was invented. Log, raft, and 

 dug-out all belong to the first and simplest 

 type, in which there are no artificial parts to fit 

 together. The second type is exemplified by 

 the birch-bark canoe, which has three parts in 

 its frame — gunwale, cross-bars, and ribs — and 

 a fourth part, the skin, to complete it. The 

 third type is distinguished from the second by 

 its keel, as clearly as vertebrate animals are dis- 

 tinguished from invertebrates by their back- 

 bone. The common keeled boat, with all its 

 variations, represents this third and, so far, 

 final type. All three types have played their 

 parts in Canada, both jointly and separately, 

 and all three play their parts to-day. But they 

 are best understood if taken one by one. 



First, then, the log, the raft, and the dug- 

 out canoe. Any one watching a ' log drive ' 

 to-day can see the shantymen afloat in much the 

 same way, though for a very different purpose, 

 as their remotest human ancestors hundreds 

 of thousands of years ago. The raft, like the 

 log, is now a self-carrying cargo, not a 

 passenger craft. But there it is, much as it 



