18 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
record, were built at Gloucester, Massachusetts, by Messrs. Higgins & Gifford, for 
Captain Solomon Jacobs, in the fall of 1887. 
The following is a description of the type : It is an open, clinker-built, keel craft, 
with good sheer; sharp bow; strongly raking curved stem; rising floor; flaring topside; 
long easy run; heart-shaped stern; skag rounded on after corner. It is built of well- 
seasoned swamp cedar, on a light bent-oak frame, and combines lightness with strength 
and speed, while it has the eminently desirable quality of turning quickly and easily. 
A variety of other types are used in connection with sealing and sea-otter-hunting, 
among which may be included the whaleboat, the dugout canoe of the Puget Sound 
region, and the skin bidarka of the Aleut. The dugout canoes and skin boats of this 
northwest coast are described in considerable detail in the following paragraphs :* 
8. Dugout canoes of Washington . — The Makah Indians are famous fishermen, and 
they build and use dugout canoes extensively. The canoe of the Makah, be it large or 
small, usually has certain peculiarities of form which mark it as distinctive in type. 
There may be, sometimes, a considerable variation in form or in proportions, but the 
typical features are tolerably constant and easily recognized. 
The Makah canoe from Neali Bay, Washington (now in the National Museum), and 
which is essentially the same in form as those used for halibut fishing and whaling, 
the chief difference being in size and equipment, may be thus described : It is sharp 
at both ends, with long, easy lines, a rather flat rounded bottom, flaring sides, the 
latter being carved so as to curve outward somewhat at the gunwale. The stern is 
vertically straight and has little if any rake. The bow, or cutwater (or what would be 
the stem on an ordinary boat), is curved strongly, and very closely resembles in shape 
the stem of a clipper fishing schooner; the upper part projects sharply forward and 
terminates in a long, pointed beak, which differs radically in shape from the bow of 
the Sitkan canoe. It has little sheer except at the ends. The beaklike bow rises with 
a pronounced but not excessive curve upward, while there is a quick upward turn at 
the extreme stern, which cannot be termed a sheer, but forms a sort of knoblike eleva- 
tion where, in a common boat, the top of the sternpost would be. Elliott thinks that 
these projections are only for the single purpose of ornamentation, and this seems prob- 
able where there is no actual addition to the sheer of the canoe. 
The following are the dimensions of this canoe: 
Feet. Inches. 
Length over all 15 51 
Beam, extreme 3 0 
Depth, amidships 1 2 
Height, amidships, gunwale to bottom of floor 1 3 
Height of stern 2 0 
Highest point of how 2 9 
Thickness of gunwale 1 
Length of paddles, each 4 8 
Width of paddle hlade -• 0 7 
The Clyoquot and Nittinat tribes or clans on Vancouver Island are expert in 
constructing canoes, made on the same model as those used by the Makahs ; indeed, 
the latter often buy their boats, especially the larger ones, from the island tribes. 
* The descriptions that follow are extracted from an unpublished report on fishing craft prepared 
by the writer, to which reference lias previously been made. 
