51 
on Mackenzie river, where the waves are often high. This statement was 
verified by informants on Great Bear lake. The average hunting canoe 
was 16 feet long, but only the width of a man. The widest part was aft 
of amidship. The bow was covered over on top from 2^ to 3 feet aft, 
and the stern 1| to 2 feet. The Slave canoe was said to be the same, but 
had practically no lengthwise supporting boards. The travelling canoe 
varied in length from 16 to 24 feet and was well reinforced with lengthwise 
boards. 
Canoes are almost always made in the spring. The women collect 
the birch bark and spruce roots and sew the canoe covering, while the men 
prepare the framework, hewing and cutting the spruce pieces entirely 
with the ax and the drawknife. The spruce gum is collected by the women 
and is smeared on after being masticated. The paddles are generally hewn 
from spruce, and like most Satudene handiwork are crude and simple. 
They are between 5 and 6 feet long, with a narrow blade. At the end of 
the handle is a very slight knob to prevent the paddle from slipping out of 
the hand. The travelling canoes are paddled by two or more people and 
apparently without any of the subtle adeptness of Indian peoples who 
spend more of their time on the water. The hunting canoes, which are 
generally so small as to offer precarious lodgment for more than one person 
at a time, are paddled in a more distinctive fashion. The paddler sits on 
his legs and ankles with his feet flattened inward together behind him, 
taking two strokes first on one side and then on the other, carrying the 
paddle in an arc above his head and reversing his hands as he does so. 
These cranky craft are managed with ease and considerable speed by the 
natives. 
Lightness is the great advantage of the hunting canoe. It is used a 
great deal for visiting nets, and is carried overland, especially in the spring 
when the little lakes and watercourses through the bush are free of ice 
and facilitate hunting game birds while the great lake is frozen. 
The travelling canoes, capable of carrying the whole equipment of the 
family, are used in moving from place to place on Great Bear lake. 
Generally the shore is followed, but at some places crossings of from 5 to 
10 miles are made. Sails, formed from parts of blankets or pieces of canvas, 
are now used with favourable winds, but there is no evidence that anything 
except paddles were used previous to European contact. The square sail 
was rigged from a mast in the middle of the boat. Hunting canoes were 
also sailed by lashing them together with poles and erecting an inverted 
V-shaped mast by joining two poles, one supported from each canoe. The 
two slender craft were spaced apart to keep them from swamping. Travel- 
ling canoes are also used on the larger rivers, such as the Mackenzie and 
Great Bear. Going upstream they are Tracked’, that is, hauled by means 
of a light line from the shore. The tracking line was formerly made of 
babiche. Travelling canoes are usually left in the autumn at the cache 
where the winter equipment was stored the spring before. These primitive 
birch-bark canoes have been almost wholly replaced by common canvas 
canoes of corresponding size and the use of outboard motors is not uncom- 
mon. 
Rafts are sometimes constructed of a few dry logs for crossing some 
stream or the water that separates the shore from the main body of lake 
5132©— 44 
