INDIAN CANOES 



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overcome by paddling, poles are used. An Indian, as he 



drives his canoe upstream against the turbulent current, 



keeps close to the bank and takes advantage of all the 



eddies, pushing along quietly until he has almost reached 



the swiftest water; then fixing his pole firmly against the 



bottom he leans back against 



it and sends the light shell 



darting upstream. Before its 



way has ceased he has again 



secured a good hold on the 



bottom, and no matter how _-v 



furious the rapid, the little — «s*= 



craft, held perfectly straight, 



moves steadily forward until 



the quiet water above has been 



reached, and the pole is laid 



aside for the paddle. 



These canoes are always 

 made from a single piece of 

 timber. In southern Alaska 

 and British Columbia where 

 the white cedar grows, this is the favorite wood, and from 

 its trunks canoes are hollowed out which are sometimes 

 eighty feet in length. Such were the great war canoes 

 in which the fierce Haida and other peoples of the north 

 used to make their war journeys to harry their enemies to 

 the southward, to plunder their villages, and to make cap- 

 tive their people, whom they brought away to their island 

 home as slaves. These great war canoes were very wide 

 and so deep that a man standing in the bottom of one 

 could not see over its sides. 



In making the canoe, the log is first roughly shaped 

 and hollowed out by fire, water or moist earth being used 

 to control the burning. After this has progressed as far 

 as is safe, a chisel formed of a piece of steel fixed in a 



HUNYA SEAL HUNTERS, GLACIER BAY. 



