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APPENDIX 
A few miscellaneous notes bearing chiefly on the material culture of 
the Parry Islanders seem worth preserving. They were gathered incidentally 
to the information on the social and religious life. 
Dwellings: the Parry Islanders seem to have no recollection of the earlier 
use of dome-shaped wigwams covered with birch bark or rushes, but 
remember two other types of bark lodges, viz., the rectangular form 
with A-shaped ends and ridge-pole, an entrance at each end, and a 
smoke-hole in the middle; and the conical or tipi form, in which the 
bark cover did not reach the apex, but left a large opening for the 
exit of the smoke. In this conical wigwam the poles were not tied 
together as on the plains, but a crotch in the first pole supported the 
second, and these two the remainder. The number of poles varied 
with the size of the wigwam, a large one requiring about twenty; the 
number was even if all the family were present, but odd if one member 
had not yet arrived, the absent person being regarded as having a pole 
with him. The birch-bark rolls were stitched together with basswood 
fibre, cedar bark, or elm root. Cedar bark was occasionally substituted 
for birch bark when the latter was difficult to procure. 
In the conical lodge, probably also in the rectangular one, the man 
and his wife slept near the door on opposite sides, the man usually on 
the left and the woman on the right. Sons slept next to the father, 
daughters beside the mother, the grandmother and other kinsfolk at 
the back of the lodge. The fireplace, of course, lay in the centre, 
directly under the smoke-hole, 
Even if the Parry Islanders, or their forefathers, may never have 
used the dome-shaped structure as a dwelling, it was the regular shape 
of their sweat-house, which they erected in a corner of the wigwam 
during the winter months, but outside it during the summer. Besides 
its use in some of their religious rites, the sweat-house served for 
the cure of certain ailments such as rheumatism and abscessed teeth. 
Canoes: nearly all the canoes around Georgian bay were formerly made of 
birch bark, stripped from the trees early in July. A man and his wife 
could make a birch-bark canoe in about a week. For emergencies the 
Indians occasionally used an elm-bark canoe, which, though heavier 
than a birch-bark one, was a little stronger and could be made by two 
men in about half a day. The elm bark, stripped from the tree in a 
single piece, was drawn round a frame of U-shaped ash ribs, the 
smooth inner surface of the bark becoming the outer surface of the 
canoe. Gunwales and ends were stitched with elm root or basswood 
fibre, and bow and stern stopped with balsam gum or the crushed 
bark of the balsam. The ordinary elm-bark canoe held two men and 
lasted for two or three years. 
